From fan to the mound: Priester's journey comes full circle with Game 3 nod at Wrigley

CHICAGO -- Growing up, it was Quinn Priester's grandparents who took the Northern Illinois kid to Wrigley Field. Grandpa Paul and Grandma Judy would take him and his sister, Maddie, about once a year, where the family would flag down vendors and eat “as many hot dogs as I could” while Priester and Paul would try to sneak peanut shells onto the bills of each other’s caps without the other one noticing.

“Watching the teams here was always a blast and definitely created a lot of my love for the sport,” Priester said.

Priester has seen plenty at Wrigley Field over the years. He went to Game 5 of the 2016 World Series. When the world shut down in 2020, he caught a Pirates and Cubs game from the still-open rooftop seats.

And while it was at American Family Field, those Cubs he rooted for growing up dealt him one of his worst outings as a pro in May, but one that sparked an amazing turnaround that helped him go from a potential journeyman to the Brewers’ Game 3 starter in the NL Division Series on Wednesday.

That rough outing came on May 2, his fifth with the Brewers. Priester followed an opener, inherited a deficit and could not do much to keep the Brewers in the game, surrendering a season-high seven runs. For someone who was pitching for his third organization in about nine months, it was a low in what had been a challenging season.

Priester, a 2019 first-round Draft pick and a former Top 100 prospect, said he felt pressure to perform whenever the Pirates called him up in July 2023. His tenure was marked with struggles, butting heads about mechanics and trips between the Majors and the Minors.

“I’ve always believed I was fit to pitch in the Major Leagues,” Priester said. “I just needed to figure out how I needed to do that. … I was really tense from all the failure in Pittsburgh. What we were trying wasn’t really working.”

The Pirates opted to trade Priester to the Red Sox ahead of the 2024 Trade Deadline. After failing to make the Red Sox’s Opening Day roster, he was again traded to the Brewers on April 7. Both moves came as a surprise to him, and that May 2 outing hit hard.

It turned out to be the start he needed.

“The next day, it’s like, ‘Hey, really good things. There are good things we can build on,’” Priester recalled. “I’m like, ‘What are you talking about? I just got my ass kicked.’

“They had confidence in me when maybe mine wasn’t at the highest.”

One of the things to build on was how Priester was handling the struggles. He wanted the ball and to keep pitching that day against the Cubs, and he ended his outing with three scoreless frames.

“That was the change. That the Cubs blistered this guy, and he wanted to continue pitching and his competitive nature came out,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy said. “... I think that failure, if you will, for him launched him into open ears. ‘OK, how do I figure this out?’ And we got the best version of him because of his competitive nature. We got the best version of him going forward, and it's been miraculous. He's been sensational for us.”

Murphy isn’t overselling. The Brewers won 19 consecutive Priester outings starting later that May. He finished 13-3 with a 3.32 ERA and became one of the best arms for the team with the best record in baseball.

“Former first-round pick, a lot of intangibles, passes the eye test, [he's] a pro. I think it was a ticking time bomb waiting for a year like this to happen for him,” outfielder Sal Frelick said.

The turnaround may have been an explosion, but the buildup was incremental. Priester ditched his four-seam fastball for a cutter when he went to the Red Sox, and he and the Brewers built on the pitch this year. The discussions with coaches were more about pitch execution than mechanics, allowing him to be more free, both physically and mentally.

He also learned the style of ball the Brewers play and the expectations the clubhouse has for each other. Fortunately for Priester, a lot of that is defense- and team-oriented.

“I don’t have the numbers I do if Brice [Turang] and Joey [Ortiz] aren’t making plays up the middle, Jackson [Chourio] isn’t diving, Perk [Blake Perkins] isn’t robbing homers and all this stuff,” Priester said. “I’m not going out there punching 10 a game. I’m getting my ground balls and I’m using the amazing players we have here.

“It hasn’t been because I’ve been incredible. It’s been because we’ve been incredible.”

Priester encapsulated that team mentality in Game 2, even if he didn’t play in the game. The Brewers started reliever Aaron Ashby, and Priester threw pregame to create a decoy that he would be the next pitcher after the opener. Instead, it was a bullpen game anchored by Jacob Misiorowski, and the Brewers won, 7-3.

“I feel like in the playoffs, you're looking for every single little edge that you can get,” Priester said. “Did it do anything? I don't know. But we at least tried, and we're willing to do things that maybe not everybody would be to just try and give ourselves one little edge, and that's just kind of how I saw it. It felt like if that was how I could help the team, I'm more than willing to do that."

This time, there is no decoy. He will start Game 3, and he’s positioned himself to help the Brewers not only during this playoff run, but in 2026 and beyond.

“All this stuff doesn’t happen without the failures,” Priester said. “All this stuff doesn’t happen without going through those things. I truly believe that sucks, but guess what, that’s the price we’ve gotta pay to have success. I kind of welcome it in smaller doses.”