'Unc' Woodruff makes Brewers spring debut, but it's fall he's focused on

TEMPE, Ariz. – It seems like yesterday to Brandon Woodruff that he joined the Brewers in St. Louis, strained his right hamstring warming up, then had to wait two more months to make his Major League debut at Tampa Bay.

But that wasn’t yesterday. It was 2017, and Woodruff is Milwaukee’s only player still around from that year.

He’s the “dad” of the Brewers’ pitching staff, or “Unc” to 27-year-old Chad Patrick, who tried and failed to stifle a laugh while saying that. Patrick is only six years Woodruff’s junior, but just beginning his big league career.

“I’m grateful for any one of us being able to pick his brain apart,” Patrick said. “I take the crap that he gives me and kind of try to give it back, but it doesn’t go over well.

“He’s awesome for this group. He’s a great leader. He just really understands the game and how to pitch. That’s what every one of us takes from him.”

In that, Patrick has plenty of company. Woodruff, who threw two scoreless innings in his first start of the spring against the Angels on Saturday, is set to surpass eight years of Major League service in April. That makes him not only the Brewers’ most seasoned starting pitcher, but a total outlier on a perennially young team’s youngest pitching staff in years.

Here are the pitchers in the Brewers’ starting rotation mix at the moment, listed by years and days of Major League service time (172 days represents one year of service):

• 7.161 - Woodruff
• 3.088 - Aaron Ashby
• 2.074 - DL Hall
• 1.136 - Robert Gasser
• 1.134 - Quinn Priester
• 1.102 - Kyle Harrison
• 0.125 - Chad Patrick
• 0.109 - Jacob Misiorowski
• 0.075 - Logan Henderson
• 0.045 - Carlos Rodriguez
• 0.022 - Brandon Sproat
• 0.000 - Shane Drohan

The gap between Woodruff and the rest of the field is wider than that list suggests, since Ashby and Hall are each more likely to make the majority of their appearances out of the bullpen. Both appear here because they’re stretching out this spring in the event they’re needed as starters early in the season, while Woodruff completes his methodical ramp-up coming off a multi-year recovery from shoulder surgery and last year’s season-ending lat strain, and while Priester navigates the lingering wrist issue that has set him back this spring.

Patrick and Misiorowski will be in the Opening Day rotation, Brewers manager Pat Murphy said on Friday, which was news to Patrick. The other spots are to be determined -- and might not include Woodruff at the very start.

After throwing 32 pitches against the Angels -- 24 during a long first inning, then eight more in a brisk second -- Woodruff remained steadfast that his goal is a healthy season culminating with appearances in the postseason. Injuries have denied him that in each of the past three years.

“Opening Day is a special day, but nobody is going to remember it after Opening Day,” Woodruff said. “They’re going to remember September and October. That’s what I want to be a part of at the end of the year.”

As Murphy put it, “We’ve got a lot up in the air. … We’re trying to keep turning the dial. There’s a lot to [tune]. Our pitching staff is very, very young.”

Such is life for the ever-changing Brewers. Woodruff is the team’s longest-tenured pitcher and Christian Yelich, acquired via trade in 2018, the longest-tenured hitter. Then there’s a gap. The next-longest tenured pitcher, Ashby, didn’t come up to the Brewers until 2021. The next-longest tenured position player, Garrett Mitchell, arrived in ‘22.

Which is why Woodruff is in “Unc” territory. When someone sent him the clip of Patrick calling him that, Woodruff had to look up what it means.

“I don’t feel 33. I don’t feel like I’m six years older than these guys,” he said. “I try to be a good teammate. I try to listen and learn. I try to help and have fun while doing it. If ‘unc’ is the term, then I’ll take it.”

Saturday represented another good step forward, Woodruff said. Armed with a dominating four-seam fastball before surgery, he’s now focused on secondary offerings like a cutter that continues to get better, and a sweeper he’s introducing this year. He showed both against the Angels.

Murphy is in “constant conversation” with Woodruff about his timeline for the start of the season, and how the Brewers might manage his workload to deliver him to October in peak form. Both sides have a lot invested. When Woodruff accepted the team’s $22.05 million qualifying offer in November, it made him the first pitcher in franchise history to top $20 million for a single season. He’ll be a free agent again next fall.

“He wants to pitch another five years,” Murphy said.