The headlines in the series belonged to the offense, which churned out 28 runs over three games, and Brandon Woodruff, who exited in the second inning after his fastball sat 7 mph lower than his season average.
But don’t overlook a couple of young Milwaukee Brewers pitchers who took the mound and will remain important to what Milwaukee does moving forward.
Outings by Chad Patrick and Shane Drohan in the Brewers’ series victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks, which was capped by a 13-1 win April 30, were notable even if both came in blowout victories.
Let’s dig into two of the biggest takeaways from the week at American Family Field.
Chad Patrick is somewhere in-between
Chad Patrick’s enigmatic year continued in his outing April 28 to open the series as he went five innings and earned the win, allowing two runs.
His first four innings, Patrick executed about as well as he ever has. In the fifth, though, it unraveled for many of the same reasons his season to this point has been rockier than the results say.
On the whole, a 2.57 ERA will more than suffice. But, underneath that, the peripheral numbers point to some trouble bubbling. Patrick, entering his last start, had struck out 11 in five outings while walking eight. His strikeout numbers had plummeted.
It wasn’t necessarily that Patrick wasn’t getting swing-and-miss. That’s the weird part; he was. Patrick’s cutter, which is his bread and butter, has gotten whiffs at an even higher rate than a year ago when he struck out 9.6 batters per nine.
He just wasn’t striking anybody out. Patrick had fanned just four batters over his last three starts spanning 13 ⅔ innings going into his start against Arizona.
The stuff was about the same. It was a matter of execution. And while the slurve, Patrick’s only pitch that gives hitters a velocity difference as well as moving in a different way, would be easy to point to, the main culprit has been fastball execution.
“You got to execute the pitch,” manager Pat Murphy said. “However that works. You have to execute the pitch. Heater up and away on the edge, it’s a whiff. If it’s in the middle, it’s contact. You don’t execute the pitch and there’s a chance to put the bat on it.”
Patrick’s start against Arizona showcased some strides in execution while also serving as a reminder of what he’s not doing consistently enough.
It isn’t hard to see what Patrick is trying to do with his cutter. He wants to throw it to his glove side – a lot.
It also isn’t hard to see, based on the chart below, what’s been wrong with it.
Patrick has had a tough time landing pitches where he wants to his gloveside.
Some of those issues, he said, stemmed from not being able to throw his “natural” cutter down and gloveside like he wants to. Patrick is throwing two variations of a cutter, the one with a two-seam grip that gets more vertical movement and has long been “his” pitch and a four-seam grip he’s been working on at the suggestion of pitching coaches Chris Hook and Jim Henderson.
It isn’t feel for the pitch that’s been the issue. It’s been getting it to the spot with his mechanics.
“It’s staying linear with that exact target that has helped me a lot to just stay through the baseball,” Patrick said. “And just understanding what that pitch is going to do. Because it’s leaking out a lot.”
Patrick was at his best in remaining linear early against Arizona.
After an early walk in which he yanked fastballs glove side, he locked it in against Corbin Carroll, the third batter of the game.
This specific pitch was a sinker and not a cutter, but catcher William Contreras didn’t have to move from his pre-pitch target. His upper half never leaks, but instead remains directional to the plate and he dots the ball to the glove.
That didn’t last, though, as Patrick walked the bases loaded to begin the fifth inning, but at least there was improvement.
What’s next for Patrick is executing his four-seam fastball, which plays well off of his vertical movement-heavy cutter. The majority of his two-strike four-seamers have been uncompetitive misses. That, Patrick feels, is the second-biggest reason he’s been short on strikeouts after the gloveside cutter.
“It’s not getting whiffs,” he said, “because I’m not executing at the top of the zone.”
Shane Drohan flashes potential
The greatest stock boost in this series belonged to Shane Drohan, the rookie left-hander who in two very different outings understood the assignment and pitched accordingly.
In Drohan’s MLB debut in Boston on April 8, the lost control of the ball in two of his innings and didn’t pitch out of the third.
That wasn’t the case against Arizona.
In a dynamic sixth inning on April 28 Drohan dotted his slider at the bottom of the zone and paired it with an electric fastball that he averaged 95.7 mph with – two ticks higher than his typical heater – and topped out at 97 mph.
The task was different his next time out, summoned on short notice to give the Brewers length when Woodruff exited in the second inning. Working with a lead thanks to two early outbursts from the top of the Brewers order, Drohan attacked, showing good command of each of his four top pitches: four-seam, sinker, slider and cutter. Even though he was asked to provide length while on just one day’s rest – something he’s rarely, if ever, had to do in his career – his velocity was still up just a bit to 94.4 mph. His ability to mix and hit corners helped him stay ahead in counts and deliver four walk-free innings of one-run ball with four more strikeouts, an outing his manager declared as “spectacular.”
“I think it all starts with just commanding the fastball,” Drohan said. “Everything plays off of that. I’m having a good mix with all the pitches but mainly just the fastball. Putting it in the zone where I want it. Elevating, down at the knees, in and out. It all starts there.”
Another key: Drohan has returned to a hybrid wind-up, ditching his full wind-up from spring and his debut, saying it synced his mechanics better. This is helping him get down the mound better and, in turn, throw a tad harder while remaining in control.
With Angel Zerpa, another lefty, going on the injured list with a concerning forearm ailment April 29, Drohan had already slid up the bullpen trust tree based upon one outing. With his latest one, as well as some potential time off for Woodruff, he’s earning even more opportunities.
“Drohan, he was spectacular,” Murphy said. “Here’s a rookie in his [fourth] appearance throwing four innings with one run. He was great.”
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: What we learned from two pitchers who should be key for the Brewers
Reporting by Curt Hogg, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
