The Brewers aren’t done with Shane Drohan in the rotation just yet, even after a brief detour into relief Tuesday night.
Milwaukee has spent the start of August working with six starters, a setup that fit the club’s recent grind of 17 games in 17 days and the inexperience in its current starting group. With Dustin May added at the August 3 trade deadline and Kyle Harrison back on August 5 after nearly a month on the injured list with forearm tightness, the Brewers have had enough bodies to keep that arrangement going. Jacob Misiorowski, Logan Henderson, Robert Gasser and Drohan have rounded out the group, and all four have been effective lately.
Once the Brewers got through that stretch without an off-day on Monday, the obvious question was whether the six-man plan would finally disappear. Curt Hogg of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that it would stick around for at least one more turn before Milwaukee’s two-series homestand against the Seattle Mariners and Atlanta Braves.
“It sounds like the Brewers plan to go with the six-man rotation for one more turn through, then they will shift Shane Drohan to a long relief role. Drohan is nearing his career high of 129 innings.”
That idea looked shaky Tuesday night when Drohan came out of the bullpen after Harrison threw five scoreless innings. It was Drohan’s first relief appearance since May 27, and he handled it well, working two scoreless innings. Still, the move did not signal a permanent change.
Instead, Milwaukee simply pushed back Drohan’s next start.
Drohan had just taken the ball in the opener of the Brewers’ four-game series against the Los Angeles Dodgers last Thursday. He bounced back nicely after his previous outing, when he gave up six earned runs on nine hits in five innings against the Minnesota Twins and struggled to locate his slider at the bottom of the zone. Against the defending World Champions, the rookie left-hander allowed three earned runs on three hits over 5.1 innings, throwing 85 pitches at Dodger Stadium.
He had been lined up to start Friday night’s series opener against the Atlanta Braves, but Tuesday’s 39-pitch relief outing changed that schedule. Now Drohan will stay in the rotation and start Sunday’s “Little League Classic” in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, which serves as the Brewers’ series finale against the Braves.
In that sense, Tuesday night worked as a mid-week bullpen session for the rookie left-hander. Drohan has shown that kind of flexibility all season, and Milwaukee used it here to get two important innings out of him before sending him back to the mound on Sunday.
What comes after that remains unsettled. The expectation is that Drohan eventually returns to the bullpen, where he could factor into the final stretch of the season and into the postseason. Milwaukee can’t keep rolling with six starters forever, and while Drohan has shown enough to remain a big-league starter, his earlier success in relief could send him back into that role down the line.
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