Brewers’ Wade Miley Placed on 15-Day IL with Strained Left Lat
The Milwaukee Brewers have lost yet another starting pitcher due to injury as left-hander Wade Miley heads to the injured list.
Miley, who signed a one-year deal worth $4.5 million with the Brewers last off-season that includes a 2024 mutual option, was placed on the 15-day injured list with a strained left lat muscle on Wednesday, the team announced. He will return to Milwaukee for further evaluation.
Without Miley, the team recalled right-hander Jake Cousins from Triple-A Nashville ahead of Wednesday’s contest versus the St. Louis Cardinals. Cousins has already made three big-league appearances this season, allowing one run on three hits and four walks while striking out four batters.
The 36-year-old lefty departed Tuesday night’s game against the Cardinals with two outs in the second inning after Brewers manager Craig Counsell signalled for a mound visit with concern over his veteran hurler.
Miley, recording a spotless first inning on nine pitches, surrendered a game-tying home run to Nolan Arenado to begin the second before retiring the next two batters. But before he could face Brendan Donovan, his night was over.
After initially trying to fight through discomfort, Counsell went to the mound with head athletic trainer Scott Barringer to examine Miley and ultimately removed him from the game.
That decision was no doubt heavily swayed by Miley’s lengthy injury history, which includes nine separate stints on the IL from 2017-22. He missed nearly four months with the Chicago Cubs last season due to elbow and shoulder injuries.
So while the 6-foot-2 hurler wanted to stay in the game, the Brewers made the correct call to end his night prematurely to avoid risking further damage to his body.
“I’ve dealt with some weird things before and thought I would keep going,” Miley said post-game. “That was probably not the best idea, but I was able to get through a couple of outs and it progressively got worse with each pitch I threw. The slider was the one pitch that I didn’t feel anything on so I was just gonna throw all sliders to the next lefty and just not tell anybody until I got in the dugout.”
“But apparently they saw something they didn’t like and Scott [Barringer] came out there. It’s probably for the best, hopefully.”
The best precursor to a new injury is usually a previous one. Thus, Milwaukee’s medical team operated cautiously with Miley’s ramp-up during spring training, believing it’d help increase his chances of staying on the field.
Less than two months into the regular season, though, the 2012 All-Star finds himself sidelined for at least the next two weeks. Given how much effort went into attempting to avoid this outcome, having it prove unsuccessful is disappointing for everyone involved.
“I made a lot of changes this offseason and through Spring Training; I’ve kind of taken a step forward in taking care of myself a little bit,” Miley said. “The training staff’s been awesome in keeping me healthy. My shoulder’s been a non-issue since Spring Training. My elbow’s been the thing that’s bothering me more than anything.”
“For this to pop up, it’s baseball. We go through injuries. I’ve just got to get through it and hopefully not too long and get back out there.”
Miley is the latest Brewers starter to be snake bitten by the injury bug, joining Brandon Woodruff (shoulder strain), Aaron Ashby (shoulder surgery) and Jason Alexander (shoulder strain). Adrian Houser also missed the first five weeks with a groin injury before returning recently.
Outside of ace Corbin Burnes and Freddy Peralta, Milwaukee has been slowed by underperformances from Eric Lauer – who had his last start skipped – and Colin Rea, demoted to triple-A earlier this week after posting a 5.52 ERA across 31.0 innings.
So as Miley recovers from his current ailment, the Brewers are left with no easy solutions for how to fill his vacated spot in the starting rotation.
The long-time journeyman got off to a strong start this season, posting a 2.31 ERA and 3.45 FIP with 21 strikeouts over his first six starts, completing no less than five innings each outing. He allowed seven runs on six hits in his most recent start heading into Tuesday, though.
Despite these injuries and poor showings, the Brewers entered Wednesday’s slate atop the NL Central Division with a 24-18 record, sitting 1.5 games ahead of the second-place Pittsburgh Pirates.
-Thomas Hall
Twitter: @ThomasHall85
Photo: Jeramey Jannene. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.