{"id":720903,"date":"2026-06-07T11:23:34","date_gmt":"2026-06-07T11:23:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/720903\/"},"modified":"2026-06-07T11:23:34","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T11:23:34","slug":"brewers-acquire-joel-kuhnel-from-athletics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/720903\/","title":{"rendered":"Brewers Acquire Joel Kuhnel From Athletics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Right-hander Joel Kuhnel<\/a> is heading to the Brewers for cash considerations. The A\u2019s designated<\/a> him for assignment on Friday. Both teams have announced the deal. Milwaukee moved Quinn Priester<\/a> to the 60-day IL to clear a 40-man roster spot for Kuhnel.<\/p>\n

The 31-year-old Kuhnel was one of manager Mark Kotsay<\/a>\u2018s top options in the ninth inning early in the season. He picked up four saves in his first seven appearances. Kuhnel remained in the high-leverage mix through May, but struggled to close the month, permitting three earned runs over his final two outings.<\/p>\n

The final blow came on Thursday against the Cubs. Kuhnel was called upon to preserve a three-run lead in the ninth inning. He gave up two earned runs on five hits while recording just two outs. Righty Luis Medina<\/a> was unable to put out Kuhnel\u2019s fire, allowing a pair of hits, including a walk-off single to Pete Crow-Armstrong<\/a>. The disastrous outing raised Kuhnel\u2019s ERA from 2.88 to 4.21.<\/p>\n

Kuhnel has pitched for four teams across parts of six big-league seasons. He spent all of 2025 at Triple-A in the Yankees\u2019 and Phillies\u2019 systems. The veteran righty came to the A\u2019s on a minor league deal in December. He didn\u2019t break camp with the team, but reached the majors after just two minor league outings.<\/p>\n

Milwaukee is missing several key pieces in the bullpen. Offseason trade acquisition Angel Zerpa<\/a> was lost to Tommy John surgery. Lefty DL Hall<\/a> just went down with a pectoral injury. Veterans Jared Koenig<\/a> and Rob Zastryzny<\/a> have missed the majority of the season. Kuhnel, being a righty, wouldn\u2019t necessarily alleviate those absences, but he could provide value in a lower-leverage role.<\/p>\n

Priester is dealing with symptoms related to thoracic outlet syndrome. He has avoided surgery up to this point. The righty recently had his rehab assignment bumped<\/a> to Rookie ball after a stretch of poor performances. Priester has 19 walks in 13 1\/3 innings across seven minor league outings. Manager Pat Murphy recently said Priester could need another month of rehab.<\/p>\n

Photo courtesy of Matt Marton, Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Right-hander Joel Kuhnel is heading to the Brewers for cash considerations. The A\u2019s designated him for assignment on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":720904,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,349426,591,57639,85],"class_list":["post-720903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-joel-kuhnel","tag-mlb","tag-quinn-priester","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=720903"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720903\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/720904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=720903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=720903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=720903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}