MILWAUKEE -- Brewers first baseman Andrew Vaughn took batting practice on the field prior to Friday night's 6-0 loss to the Pirates for the first time since undergoing surgery to remove a fractured hamate bone in his left hand on March 30. Vaughn has another follow-up with his surgeon on Tuesday, and he hopes to be ready to begin a Minor League rehab assignment soon thereafter.
It would mark his first chance to see live pitching.
Or would it?
Vaughn explained that he actually did get to see some pitching during his absence thanks to the Trajekt machine, a device you’ll find in batting cages across Major League Baseball. It projects a specific pitcher on a large screen and fires pitches from his precise release point with the same properties of velocity and movement. Plug in a pitcher, and a hitter can see a decent representation of his arsenal, on-demand.
(For a peek inside the cage to see what that looks like, MLB.com’s Christina De Nicola wrote about the Marlins’ use of the Trajekt in 2025.)
For Vaughn and Jackson Chourio, who is also coming back from a fractured left hand, it became a tool to stay sharp when they couldn’t swing the bat. During the Brewers’ last homestand, they stood in the batter’s box and tracked pitches from the same starting pitcher their teammates were facing for real that night.
“We were in there two-three innings every game,” Vaughn said. “We cut a baseball bat in half and we were swinging, just to have the timing right. It feels good.”
The next step is to actually make contact with velocity. Vaughn will get that chance as soon as he builds the strength.
“I feel like it’s pretty much all the way back,” Vaughn said. “Now, I think it’s just getting some at-bats under my belt. We’ll see how that goes. Hopefully, it’s sooner rather than later.”