The Milwaukee Brewers are less than a week away from starting the 2025 MLB season in an Opening Weekend series with the New York Yankees. And while it is exciting to have regular season baseball back, the Brewers are going to enter the year with far less starting pitching depth than they were hoping for.
DL Hall, whom Milwaukee acquired along with Joey Ortiz in the Corbin Burnes trade, is on the 60-Day injured list with a lat injury. Aaron Ashby and Tobias Myers both suffered oblique strains and will not be ready for the start of the season.
And these injuries do not even include Robert Gasser, who is recovering from Tommy John surgery and will not be able to rejoin the team until August.
As a result, the first three starters for the Brewers this year will be Freddy Peralta, Nestor Cortes, and Aaron Civale. After them, though, it gets a bit murky.
The Milwaukee Brewers Do Not Have a Healthy Starting Rotation
Last season, the Brewers used a franchise-record 17 different starting pitchers. Some of these were “openers,” relief pitchers who started the game, but only threw one or two innings.
Unfortunately, it looks like Milwaukee will need to make use of these types of games early in 2025.
Jose Quintana, who was signed well into Spring Training, is not ready to throw the amount of innings needed from a starter. He may need an extended Spring Training to help him ramp up.
Brandon Woodruff, too, will not be ready for the start of the season. After missing most of 2023 and all of 2024 with a shoulder injury, he is still building back up. Fortunately, he has been able to appear in games and his shoulder is recovering nicely after each outing.
And he may be back in Milwaukee sooner than expected.
Brandon Woodruff Could Return for the Milwaukee Brewers Soon
According to Brewers insider Adam McCalvy, Woodruff threw two innings of a minor league game on Thursday. His fastball reached 95 mph again, showing that the consistent velocity both he and the team were looking for has reemerged.
McCalvy reported that the two-time All-Star will travel with Milwaukee to New York for Opening Weekend. After that, he will go with the rest of the Brewers back home where he will throw a simulated game. Should everything go well with that, Woodruff will travel back to Phoenix to continue ramping up his stamina.
In other words, he could be back in the starting rotation sooner than expected.
And that is good news for a Brewers rotation that is suddenly short on pitchers.
In seven seasons with Milwaukee, Woodruff is 46-26 with a 3.10 ERA.
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