The Milwaukee Brewers are currently without several starting pitchers. Brandon Woodruff, Jose Quintana, Aaron Civale, Aaron Ashby, DL Hall, and Tobias Myers are all currently unavailable. This has led to a makeshift starting rotation featuring Tyler Alexander, Elvin Rodriguez, and Chad Patrick.
For Rodriguez, his first two turns through the rotation have been clunkers. He hasn’t pitched well, hitters have taken advantage, and the Brewers offense has not been able to keep pace in both of the games he has started.
Elvin Rodriguez has struggled during his first two starts with the Milwaukee Brewers
Rodriguez, a 27 year old righty who was signed this off-season after posting a 1.74 ERA overseas last year, has surrendered 11 earned runs and given up five home runs during his first two starts. His most recent start, against the Cincinnati Reds, consisted of five innings pitched, eight hits allowed, four home runs given up, and seven earned runs.
Milwaukee has been having Rodriguez rely heavily upon his four seam fastball and cutter, throwing them 73.6% of the time. Unfortunately he is not locating them well and big league hitters are capitalizing on his mistakes.
Not a place you want to live in the big leagues. pic.twitter.com/7DK82QTNeU
— Dominic Cotroneo (@Dom_Cotroneo) April 6, 2025
With the way Rodriguez has pitched, he is in real danger of not making a third start for the Brewers. Rodriguez does have two minor league options, so if the team chooses he can safely be retained in the minor leagues to work through his command issues.
Connor Thomas has struggled in his first two big league outings
Following Rodriguez in the Brewers 11-7 loss was Rule-5 pick Connor Thomas. He got blown up for eight earned runs during his MLB debut at Yankee Stadium, but his second outing was not much better. Thomas tossed 3.1 innings, gave up six hits, and four earned runs.
What is frustrating about Thomas’ most recent outing against the Reds is that if he had kept Cincinnati off the scoreboard, Milwaukee may have had a shot at winning. Thomas entered the game when the score was 7-5, but he surrendered three runs in the seventh inning and was responsible for the run scored in the ninth.
The deciding factor in this game was the Brewers two pitching weak links getting exposed. It’s more than likely that one, or both, of these pitchers will be involved in a future roster transaction as neither player is helping the team win ball games right now.
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