The Brewers placed pitcher Brandon Woodruff on the 15-day injured list Sunday with a right lat strain, putting his availability for the MLB postseason in jeopardy.
The Brewers recalled lefty Robert Gasser to start the series finale Sunday against St. Louis. The move with Woodruff was retroactive to Thursday.
The news comes four days after left-hander Jose Quintana went on the 15-day injured list with a left calf strain.
Those two moves leave the Brewers, who have the best record in baseball, with plenty of uncertainty in how they could arrange their playoff rotation beyond Freddy Peralta and Quinn Priester.
Woodruff, who returned this season after October 2023 shoulder surgery, felt something amiss in his tricep during a bullpen session Saturday, and an initial evaluation traced the issue to the lat in his upper back.
“This is a side effect of getting back into doing this at a high level, and that’s it. Is this career-ending? No, it’s nothing like that,” Woodruff said while sitting in the Brewers’ dugout. “It’s nothing even compared to the surgery, but it’s just one of those things that it’ll heal, it’ll get better. It’s just (bad) timing.”
Since coming off the injured list in mid-August, rookie sensation Jacob Misiorowski had allowed 21 runs in 30 1/3 innings, and manager Pat Murphy spoke Friday about the possibility of giving him a relief role in the postseason.
“Everybody that’s pitched well is a factor, you know what I mean? How we line it up and how we end up going with it won’t be too, too much of a surprise to anybody,” Murphy said Sunday.
Murphy said closer Trevor Megill, who has been out since late August with a right flexor strain, could return for the season finale if his bullpen sessions Tuesday and Friday go well. Quintana has been able to continue his throwing program while working on running to get his calf healthy again.
Woodruff, 32, missed all of last season following surgery to repair an anterior capsule tear and has gone 7-2 in 12 starts since returning in July.
Despite his current injury, he said he has exceeded his expectations in terms of limits on his innings pitched this year between his activity in spring training and the season.
“The biggest goal of mine was to finish the year healthy,” Woodruff said. “Hopefully we win the World Series, and now it’s a month away.
“But I knew, I knew deep down, the longer I kept going, that’s kind of the side effect (of the shoulder surgery). … The longer you keep going, things like this can happen.”
Woodruff held off on setting any expectations for his short-term status, noting he had not yet been able to visit with Dr. Keith Meister, who performed the surgery.
“The biggest thing is just kind of being here where my feet are, and then take it a step at a time,” Woodruff said, “but I can’t comment on whether it’s going to end the season or not.”
Woodruff was expected to visit with a specialist in St. Louis on Sunday before consulting with Meister.
“All indication is it’s not the shoulder, and that’s a good thing, but this is the kind of thing that happens when you’re coming back from injury — you injure something else,” Murphy said. “So, it’s devastating for the person, for Woody and how hard he’s worked to get here, and devastating for our team.”
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