{"id":769677,"date":"2026-07-18T05:29:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T05:29:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/769677\/"},"modified":"2026-07-18T05:29:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T05:29:10","slug":"brewers-initially-using-lance-mccullers-jr-in-relief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/769677\/","title":{"rendered":"Brewers Initially Using Lance McCullers Jr. In Relief"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Brewers activated newly-acquired<\/a> righty\u00a0Lance McCullers Jr.<\/a> from the 15-day injured list for the start of the second half. Lefty\u00a0Jared Koenig<\/a> was optioned to Triple-A Nashville in a corresponding move.<\/p>\n

McCullers\u2019 tenure in Milwaukee will begin in the bullpen, manager Pat Murphy told reporters (link via Adam McCalvy of MLB.com<\/a>).\u00a0Logan Henderson<\/a> got the ball for tonight\u2019s opener with the Marlins. Shane Drohan<\/a> and\u00a0Robert Gasser<\/a> will round out the series.<\/p>\n

That\u2019ll leave the first two games of next week\u2019s series against the Mets to Brandon Sproat<\/a> and\u00a0Jacob Misiorowski<\/a> in some order. The latter was scratched from his final start before the All-Star Break with arm fatigue but is good to go for the New York series. The Mets have already listed\u00a0Freddy Peralta<\/a> as their starter for Monday\u2019s opener at American Family Field. There\u2019s a chance he could match up against Sproat, one of the two prospects for whom he was traded<\/a>, in his return to Milwaukee \u2014 and likely one of his final few starts as a Met.<\/p>\n

McCullers hasn\u2019t made a major league appearance since May 13. The righty had taken eight starts for the Astros and was tagged for a 6.86 earned run average across 39 1\/3 innings. He has missed the last two months with shoulder inflammation. McCullers built up to 77 pitches on a rehab assignment. Milwaukee could\u2019ve given him a starter\u2019s workload but evidently preferred not to disrupt their current rotation.<\/p>\n

That trade was as much about acquiring a depth starter with minor league options,\u00a0Colton Gordon<\/a>, whom the Brewers assigned to Triple-A. Milwaukee ate around $2.5MM of McCullers\u2019 $17MM salary to essentially \u201cpurchase\u201d Gordon from a Houston team up against the luxury tax line. The Brewers have some leeway in the standings to see if they can make a few adjustments to get McCullers on track. They presumably presented the veteran with an early plan when he agreed to waive his no-trade rights.<\/p>\n

The corresponding move is also of some note, as it marks the first time that Koenig has been sent down in two years. He was on the active roster all of last season, while this year\u2019s Triple-A work came on a rehab stint working back from elbow inflammation. Koenig had an excellent 2025 campaign, turning in a 2.86 ERA while striking out more than a quarter of opponents across 66 innings. He has allowed nine runs (seven earned) on 12 hits and seven walks this year. Most of the damage came in the final game before the Break, as Koenig failed to retire any of the five hitters he faced in a blowout loss to Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n

Milwaukee entered the season with one of the best left-handed relief units in MLB. Injuries to Angel Zerpa<\/a> (Tommy John surgery) and\u00a0Rob Zastryzny<\/a> (trap strain) \u2014 plus Koenig\u2019s elbow issue and subsequent struggles \u2014 have thinned the group considerably. They\u2019re down to just\u00a0Aaron Ashby<\/a> at the moment, making a second southpaw a potential deadline target. Any of Drohan, Gasser or Gordon could also factor into the bullpen once Milwaukee gets\u00a0Kyle Harrison<\/a> back from the forearm tightness that shelved him just before the Break.<\/p>\n

Harrison has maintained confidence it\u2019ll be a short-term absence. It\u2019s crucial that he and Misiorowski are both healthy down the stretch.\u00a0Quinn Priester<\/a> is done for the year after undergoing thoracic outlet surgery, and it seems all but official that Brandon Woodruff<\/a> won\u2019t be back either. That was apparent when Milwaukee transferred him<\/a> to the 60-day injured list over the weekend.<\/p>\n

Murphy confirmed this afternoon that the prognosis on Woodruff\u2019s recent shoulder injury \u201cisn\u2019t good.\u201d The pitcher will meet with the Milwaukee beat in the next few days to make a formal announcement. \u201cIt\u2019s extremely painful to even think about, knowing what he meant in this organization and knowing what he meant to this team,\u201d Murphy told reporters (via McCalvy).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Brewers activated newly-acquired righty\u00a0Lance McCullers Jr. from the 15-day injured list for the start of the second…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":769678,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[103035,13260,59654,69753,99],"class_list":["post-769677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-brandon-woodruff","tag-jacob-misiorowski","tag-jared-koenig","tag-lance-mccullers-jr","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=769677"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769677\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/769678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=769677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=769677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=769677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}