With Woodruff's return imminent, Patrick holds his own vs. Rockies

MILWAUKEE -- Brewers assistant pitching coach Jim Henderson can’t say for sure whether rookie right-hander Chad Patrick has been distracted by Brandon Woodruff's slow march back from shoulder surgery and how that might impact the Major League starting rotation. But Henderson does know this: Patrick is the kind of pitcher who likes a challenge.

While Woodruff waited out the rain in Jacksonville with Triple-A Nashville on Sunday prior to throwing 82 pitches and touching 95.4 mph in what was expected to be his final rehab start, 26-year-old Patrick lived on the edge for five hard-fought innings of what became an 11-inning, 4-3 loss to the Rockies at American Family Field.

The Rockies scored one run in each of the final four innings to spoil what could have been an uplifting afternoon for Patrick and the Brewers, who were one out away from finishing a three-game series sweep when Orlando Arcia homered off Milwaukee closer Trevor Megill with two outs in the ninth.

The Brewers were able to answer when the Rockies scored again off Megill in the 10th but couldn’t do so when Colorado put another run on the board in the 11th, snapping Milwaukee’s four-game winning streak.

"Chad Patrick did a nice job and our relievers did a nice job, but [the Rockies] got big hits,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy said. “It’s a good reminder that you can lose these games. You’ve got to play every pitch. A one-run lead’s not enough.”

Now the Brewers will spend the coming days finalizing a pitching rotation for the back half of the coming road trip. Freddy Peralta, Jacob Misiorowski and José Quintana are already slated to start the three games at the Mets from Tuesday-Thursday, and Quinn Priester is lined up to get the opener of the subsequent series against the Marlins in Miami.

Early indications were that the Brewers planned to wait until the finale of the Marlins series to bring back Woodruff, but that wasn’t yet finalized, and it assumed there were no setbacks during or after Woodruff’s outing.

In either event, Patrick sought a bounce-back after allowing at least four earned runs in three straight starts leading to an outing against the Rockies in which he needed 32 pitches for the first inning and 99 pitches through five -- but never yielded a run. He scattered four hits and two walks and finished with eight strikeouts, one shy of his season high, stranding runners at third base in the first, second and fifth innings.

"We’ve challenged Chad recently with game-planning a bit more, understanding hitters’ strengths and how his stuff is playing,” Henderson said. “That’s the next piece to his development. You can only get away for so long until the league catches up.”

Patrick thrived at the start of the season on the strength of his unique cutter, which comes at hitters from an unusual angle. Now the Brewers are encouraging him to pitch more with his slider and changeup -- particularly the slider, which Patrick threw 24 times on Sunday, generating 11 swings and seven whiffs. He walked away from a recent conversation on that topic with pitching coach Chris Hook saying, “I needed that,” according to Henderson.

"It’s been a ‘grindy’ pitch for me this year, but I was able to use it as much as I could and it just complemented the cutter and the fastball,” Patrick said.

Asked whether it was his best pitch against the Rockies, Patrick responded, “One hundred percent. I felt like I was locating it well.”

Meanwhile, Woodruff was in Jacksonville trying to complete a comeback that has been lengthened by various degrees of bad luck. Twice on the cusp of returning to the Major League rotation, Woodruff’s first rehab assignment was scuttled by a right ankle injury and the second cut short by a line drive off his pitching elbow. This third assignment was delayed by about 90 minutes by rain.

He was charged with four runs on four hits in 3 2/3 innings, including a three-run homer in the first. The pitching line, according to both Henderson and Murphy, didn’t matter. What mattered was Woodruff pushing his pitch count past 80 and getting through the game healthy. He used the extra weeks since his last setback to finalize some mechanics and was sitting at 93-94 mph during a live batting practice against Brewers teammates earlier on this homestand.

If Woodruff indeed pitches in Miami, he will have come full circle. His last Major League outing was on Sept. 23, 2023, against the Marlins at loanDepot park.

"I actually think he got more out of that [simulated] setting out here on a big league mound with his uniform on, even without anybody in the seats,” Henderson said. “He’s set up nicely.”