Here's why Brewers manager Pat Murphy isn't making pitching changes

MILWAUKEE -- As if the Brewers’ injured list wasn’t long enough, now it’s expanded to include manager Pat Murphy.

Murphy wasn’t able to walk to the mound to make pitching changes this weekend because of a degenerative right hip that has worsened to the point where he leaves his office or his seat at the end of the dugout only when absolutely necessary. That’s why fans saw pitching coach Chris Hook make changes starting with Saturday’s loss to the Phillies at American Family Field.

The 67-year-old Brewers manager had hoped to delay handing off those duties long enough to get to a scheduled hip surgery on July 13, the first day of the All-Star break. But Murphy’s condition has worsened so severely that he was scheduled for an MRI scan on Monday, while the Brewers are off. Based on his terrible pain on Sunday morning, however, the Brewers were able to schedule something immediately, so Murphy underwent that testing and made it back for the series finale against the Phillies at American Family Field.

“The MRI is for my back,” Murphy said earlier Sunday morning. “What I have is a nerve running down my leg, and if I stand up and straighten up -- the pain, if you’ve had nerve pain, it’s just ridiculous. I literally can’t walk. They think the back now has degenerative discs that might have to be taken care of. It might be back surgery, it might just be an epidural. They’re doing the MRI.

“Half of the doctors think it’s the back, some of the doctors think it’s just an impingement in my hip because my hip is so bad, bone on bone. I don’t know what it is, but I can’t anymore.”

Murphy initially had hip surgery scheduled for November, but he delayed the procedure on the advice of a medical professional who found a version of therapy that helped. It got him through the Winter Meetings in Orlando, Fla., well enough, but by the new year, Murphy was in pain once again.

He has suffered in silence until now. The only sign of it was the TENS unit he often wore around his waist during afternoon media sessions, delivering electrical stimulation to his hip and back.

By Friday’s series opener against the Phillies, he was no longer able to get to the mound to make pitching changes, and Hook was assigned those duties. Nobody else knew that, however, because Jacob Misiorowski pitched all nine innings and made pitching changes unnecessary.

If you wondered why Murphy didn’t leave the bench for high-fives following that game, now you know.

It’s already a tough job managing a pair of young sons who are 11 and 7 years old, not to mention a team of Major League ballplayers. Being in constant pain has added to the degree of difficulty.

“You just know that you have to focus way better, and you just want to think of anything else [besides the pain],” he said. “And you know what? Everybody’s helping. That’s the good thing.”