Milwaukee's pitching staff can't catch a break. Just days after ace Brandon Woodruff went down with shoulder inflammation, the Brewers had to put another starter on the shelf, and this time it's the lefty who'd quietly been one of their best surprises of the year.
Brewers Place Kyle Harrison On 15-Day Injured List t.co/9lldoQmSuG
Harrison had been dealing with soreness on the outside of his left elbow for a couple of weeks before it caught up to him, exiting his last start after just 4 innings and 70 pitches with discomfort. The IL stint is officially retroactive, and the diagnosis is being called left forearm tightness. Harrison, acquired from the Red Sox in a February trade, had been a legit find for Milwaukee's rotation, sitting at 8-2 with a 3.01 ERA across 17 starts before the injury hit. Robert Gasser was called up from Triple-A Nashville to fill the roster spot.
The Harrison news lands on top of an already shaky week for the Brewers staff. Woodruff, their $72 million ace, went down earlier with right shoulder inflammation after a start where his velocity noticeably dropped off in the fourth inning. What looked at first like a recurrence of an old issue turned worse when an MRI reportedly found a new injury to the same anterior capsule that had already been surgically repaired once before. Drew Rom got the call-up to cover that rotation spot.
The #Brewers lose another frontline starting pitcher to the injured list: t.co/lFPkjlBCWA
Losing two rotation pieces within a week is the kind of stretch that turns a contender's summer into a scramble. Milwaukee has leaned on pitching depth all year, but stacking a possible season-ending shoulder issue for Woodruff on top of Harrison's elbow scare thins that margin fast, right as other clubs are gearing up for the trade deadline. For fantasy managers and Brewers fans alike, the rotation now runs through names like Gasser and Rom who weren't supposed to be needed this much, this soon.
The next update to watch is Woodruff's timeline given the new anterior capsule finding, since that's the kind of injury that can linger well past a standard 15-day stint. Harrison's outlook sounds less dire for now, with forearm tightness typically a shorter fix than shoulder structural damage, but any lat or elbow setback for a young arm is worth watching closely heading into the All-Star break.