PITTSBURGH -- The Brewers placed setup man Nick Mears on the 15-day injured list because of lower back tightness on Friday, the latest blow to a bullpen suddenly depleted of some of its most trusted arms.
Mears’ injury comes at a time when the team was already without All-Star closer Trevor Megill (right flexor), key Trade Deadline acquisition Shelby Miller (right elbow), unsung right-hander Grant Anderson (right ankle) and multi-inning left-hander DL Hall (right oblique). Also sidelined is 23-year-old No. 5 prospect Logan Henderson, who delivered a 1.78 ERA in five Brewers starts this season and would surely be in the rotation or the bullpen now had he not gone down with a right elbow injury.
Miller is lost for the season and faces the prospect of a second career Tommy John surgery, but the Brewers hope to get Anderson and Megill back from the IL soon. Anderson is scheduled to begin a rehab assignment with Triple-A Nashville on Saturday and could rejoin the big league club as soon as Monday, and the Brewers have mapped out a plan to get Megill back to active duty by Sept. 16, manager Pat Murphy said. Megill threw off the mound on Thursday for the first time since landing on the IL on Aug. 27.
The hope, a club official said, is that Mears will be close to a minimum IL stay. He’s eligible beginning Sept. 17. Of course, that all depends on how he responds to treatment in the coming days.
Hall isn’t expected back until late September or early October, and Henderson isn’t even eligible until October because he was placed on the 60-day IL.
“It’s just tough right now,” Murphy said after Thursday’s loss to the Phillies, hinting at the loss of another reliever. “We’ll deal with it the best way we can. You look around, everybody’s had injuries, it just seems like we’ve had more than anybody. And I’m not complaining, because our guys step up every time.”
Right-hander Carlos Rodriguez was recalled from Triple-A Nashville, but he doesn’t have the same high-leverage profile of Mears, who has a 3.42 ERA in 59 games. With Megill and Miller down, right-hander Abner Uribe and left-hander Jared Koenig have drawn the save opportunities so far.
That covers the eighth and ninth many nights, but the Brewers have shown as well as any club in recent seasons that games are just as often won in the sixth or seventh inning by holding tight leads. Those roles are up for grabs at the moment for candidates like recently-recalled Joel Payamps, who has extensive experience as a setup man for Milwaukee in recent years, plus the unproven Craig Yoho. The Brewers also have a pair of pitchers in the bullpen, Tobias Myers and Erick Fedde, who have more experience as starters.
The Brewers have seemed to find a way when faced with similar challenges. Even with the dire state of their starting pitching at the beginning of the season and the bullpen corps at the moment, the team went into Friday night ranked second in the Majors with a 3.63 ERA. They were 10th in the Majors with a 3.83 ERA from relievers.
“Those guys are going to have to step up, that’s all there is to it,” Murphy said. “That’s our moniker anyways, right?”