MIAMI -- Left-hander Aaron Ashby is a weapon again, and that’s making a difference for a Brewers bullpen that continues to be a strength.
Ashby extinguished a Marlins rally in the fifth inning and went on to convert seven outs while hitting 99 mph on the radar gun during Milwaukee’s 6-5 win at loanDepot park on Friday night, putting the Brewers back in the win column on what wasn’t their cleanest night.
It continued a surge for the 27-year-old Ashby, who missed nearly two months at the start of this season with an oblique injury but is unscored upon in 10 of his 11 appearances since returning. He has yet to get any of the late-inning, high-leverage work he handled down the stretch last season, but Friday was another step in that direction.
“To be in games like that feels good,” Ashby said. “It feels good to have that trust and be the guy that’s called on.”
Ashby’s early outings were low-leverage but Friday’s came in a tight spot.
A back-and-forth series opener saw the Marlins tie the game at 5-5 in the fifth with Otto Lopez’s two-run home run off Brewers starter Quinn Priester, whose 4 2/3 innings finished with a single and a walk with two outs.
On came Ashby to strike out Miami third baseman Connor Norby, who had homered an inning earlier. Ashby then cleared two more scoreless innings and was the pitcher of record when Jackson Chourio delivered a go-ahead double in the eighth. It was the difference in a game that saw five Milwaukee hitters drive in a run.
“Ever since [Ashby] came back, he’s just been awesome for us,” Priester said. “That was a huge situation for us. You definitely don’t like handing the ball over with traffic like that, but he shows up for us. He showed up for the team in that situation and got a really gritty strikeout.”
Priester’s own outing was marred by a mistake in the third inning, when he fielded Jesús Sánchez’s comebacker and threw it over the head of first baseman Jake Bauers for the first of two Brewers errors on the play that spotted the Marlins a run. Then Miami homered off Priester in each of the next two innings.
“I kind of allowed that to stick with me longer than it should have,” he said.
Fortunately for Priester, the Brewers have a capable bullpen behind their starters -- albeit a hard-worked one.
The high-leverage arms starts with closer Trevor Megill – who endured a 32-pitch bottom of the ninth on Friday to strand the tying runner in scoring position for save No. 19 – and his two primary setup men, right-hander Abner Uribe and left-hander Jared Koenig. But the group has grown much larger than that at various points during the ebb and flow of this season, with significant contributions in leverage from right-handers Nick Mears and Grant Anderson and left-hander Rob Zastryzny.
Now that Zastryzny landed on the injured list with a rib issue, the Brewers will lean more on Ashby and fellow left-hander DL Hall, each of whom have come through in big moments on this road trip. On Wednesday in New York, Hall delivered one of his most impactful outings of the season when he worked two hitless innings to finish Milwaukee’s two-hit victory that began with Freddy Peralta and Mears in Game 1 of a doubleheader against the Mets.
“With the type of team we have, who we are and kind of how we have to operate, all eight relievers have to be able to pitch in leverage,” Murphy said. “It has to happen. So it’s a focal point where you don’t hang around unless you’re capable of that.”
The Brewers are close to that now, despite Murphy’s concerns about some of his relievers’ workloads. Only one of the current eight, right-hander Easton McGee, is primarily assigned to low-leverage work.
“It's a deep bullpen, and [the Brewers have] the ability to match up when time calls for it and also some guys at the end with some power,” Marlins manager Clayton McCullough said. “I’m proud of our guys for putting some at-bats together at the end there to put us in a position to at least tie it or win it.”
Ashby and Co. managed to hold off that charge, denying a Marlins team that won nine of its previous 10 games.
“I think with anything, the more you do it the more comfortable you get with it,” Ashby said. “I’m happy with how the changeup is coming along. The slider, the timing, being comfortable with runners on base and coming in in those situations - everything feels good.”