MINNEAPOLIS – If Robert Gasser is called up to start Sunday for his season debut, he would become the 11th starting pitcher for the Brewers in their first 44 games. Only the Astros (12) have used more.
For this franchise, it takes a village to fill a starting rotation.
“It would be a different situation if we had guys coming up here and they were getting shelled, but that’s not what’s happening at all,” said Brewers assistant GM Matt Kleine before Logan Henderson and Chad Patrick combined to give the bullpen a break and Jackson Chourio hit a go-ahead home run in Saturday’s 2-1 win over the Twins at Target Field. “We feel really good about the depth we have. And we’re not afraid to use it.”
With Brandon Woodruff on the injured list with shoulder inflammation and Quinn Priester still searching for feel in his comeback from thoracic outlet syndrome, the Brewers’ young pitching depth has become the story of the season. Every pitcher who has started for Milwaukee this month has less than two years of Major League service time. None has made more than Kyle Harrison’s 45 big league starts. The next most experienced, Jacob Misiorowski, was still in the Minors at this time last year.
And the Brewers continue to make it work. In this series against the Twins, their starters are Coleman Crow (second Major League start), Henderson (ninth Major League start) and Gasser (who has already joined the team and, barring a change of plans on Sunday morning, would make his eighth Major League start).
“I think it’s just a way of doing things,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy said. “The organization has come to know that this is the way we need to do it.”
It has been doing it well. In the 13 May games since Woodruff landed on the injured list, Brewers starters have a 2.15 ERA. Only the Rays’ starters have pitched better this month.
Crow and Henderson have kept things rolling in this series against the Twins. Henderson faced traffic in most of his five innings on Saturday, but he held Minnesota to a lone run on Trevor Larnach’s third-inning home run, limiting the damage from six hits by walking only one and logging five of his seven strikeouts while the Twins had runners in scoring position.
Then Patrick, the erstwhile starter who has embraced his recent move to relief, carried the game to the finish line, holding Minnesota scoreless over four innings for his first save since Patrick’s freshman year at Purdue University Northwest in 2018.
“Everyone is young [for] the league,” Patrick said, “and we just know we can go out there and compete any given day. I think we show that a lot.”
Said Henderson: “The organization has put a lot of trust in us. The defense is unbelievable, the guys we put behind the plate are incredible. It’s just the ‘next man up’ mentality. … We try not to make it bigger than it is.”
Those performances followed Crow, who was called up Friday to make a spot start for the second time this season and delivered, holding the Twins hitless until the fifth inning while keeping the bullpen in order by working into the sixth.
“He’s 2-for-2 for me, man,” said Murphy, referring to Crow’s other spot start on April 17 in Miami, where he kept the club close enough to win in extra innings. “It reminds me of Henderson last year. The guy just kept coming up and giving us great outings.”
Henderson made five starts over three separate stints with the 97-win Brewers in 2025, going 3-0 with a 1.78 ERA in those games. He improved to 1-1 with a 3.50 ERA through four starts of ‘26 after Chourio led off the top of the sixth with his first home run of the season, part of a stellar night on which Chourio tallied two extra-base hits and made a sliding, run-saving catch in left field in the seventh inning when Patrick was clinging to a one-run lead.
Now the Brewers are poised to add Gasser to the mix on Sunday for his season debut, after he was delayed earlier this year by occasional discomfort in his surgically repaired left elbow. Gasser chalked up those issues to his body adjusting to his first full season back from rehab.
By adding him to the rotation now, the Brewers will provide an extra day of rest for Brandon Sproat, Misiorowski and Harrison for their probable starts against the Cubs in the next series at Wrigley Field.
“We’re trying to do everything we can to piece it together [with] a bunch of young guys,” Murphy said. “It’s fun. Really fun. It’s exciting.”
It has been the Brewers’ way. Strength in numbers.
Of their 10 starters going into Gasser’s probable start on Sunday, only two have been openers (Aaron Ashby and DL Hall for one start apiece). At this pace, the Brewers would have a chance to match the record for starting pitchers used in a season during the Modern Era (since 1900). The 1915 Athletics and 2023 Athletics employed 24 starters apiece.
“I think it’s special,” Henderson said. “It’s cool to see that we have a lot of young arms in the room. It’s fun. We just try to piggyback off each other.”