BOSTON -- A dozen games into the regular season, the Brewers already have employed seven starting pitchers. There will be more.
In each of the past two seasons, the Brewers have had 17 different pitchers start a game, matching a franchise record first set by the 1969 Seattle Pilots. The all-time mark, if you’re wondering, belongs to the A’s, who had 24 different pitchers start at least one game in 1915, when they were based in Philadelphia, and again in 2023, when they called Oakland home.
“If you’re in the room in Milwaukee Brewers Spring Training and you’re a pitcher,” manager Pat Murphy said ahead of Wednesday’s 5-0 loss to the Red Sox at Fenway Park, “you’re probably going to pitch in the big leagues. We use a lot.”
It was a rainout at the start of their first road trip that prompted the Brewers to add Logan Henderson and Shane Drohan to the season-opening fivesome of Jacob Misiorowski, Chad Patrick, Brandon Sproat, Kyle Harrison and Brandon Woodruff. Already, with just two weeks in the books, the team is in a pinch with the pitching.
Drohan (No. 25 Brewers prospect, per MLB Pipeline) made his Major League debut on Wednesday against the team that traded him to Milwaukee two months ago, and he didn’t fare well. He followed a pair of scoreless innings to start his career with a long third marred by three walks, including one with the bases loaded, and two infield hits, including one that ricocheted off second baseman David Hamilton’s glove for an RBI. That was the costliest of several plays that didn’t get made for Drohan on defense.
He landed 28 pitches within the tight strike zone established by home plate umpire Brennan Miller, and missed with 35. Drohan struggled to grip the baseball in the cold air, which meant misses with his fastball and only five sliders. In the dugout, coaches and staff tried to help find legal ways to help Drohan with that to no avail. He was out of the game after recording only eight outs.
“Not great. I definitely needed better fastball command,” Drohan said. “I felt like I did some good things. I threw some good cutters, some good breaking balls. I just needed to be around the zone a little bit more.”
Said Murphy: “I know he’s better than that.”
Brewers hitters didn’t fare better. Missing Brice Turang, sidelined by ankle tendinitis, and William Contreras, who needed the day to rest tight hamstrings, on top of being without the injured Jackson Chourio and Andrew Vaughn, they were shut out for the first time this season on four hits and went 0-for-5 with runners in scoring position to finish a 4-for-30 series. By dropping the last two games to Boston, Milwaukee absorbed a series loss for the first time in 2026.
“Just think of other teams. When you’re missing four of your top guys, it’s going to be tough,” Murphy said. “But it’s not that they didn’t try, that’s for sure.”
Drohan got the call over fellow left-handed pitching prospect Robert Gasser (Brewers No. 17) because Gasser has been in a holding pattern since striking out 11 in Triple-A Nashville’s season opener. He reported some arm fatigue coming out of that game, so the Brewers opted to skip his next start. Gasser is expected to throw a side session before the end of the week.
It was a long road to the Major Leagues. Drohan, whose father, Bill, pitched in the Minors for the Royals, was Boston’s fifth-round Draft pick in 2020 and was on the cusp of the Majors after the White Sox selected him in the 2023 Rule 5 Draft. But he never got that chance. The following February, Drohan underwent nerve decompression surgery and was ultimately returned to Boston.
Whether he remains in Milwaukee’s rotation or is optioned back to Triple-A in favor of a fresh arm for an already-taxed bullpen, the Brewers will surely call upon Drohan again this season. Their strength in numbers approach to starting pitching was behind the move that brought him to Milwaukee in the first place -- a stunner of a trade that sent the entire depth chart at third base, led by Caleb Durbin coming off a third-place finish in NL Rookie of the Year Award balloting, to Boston for Hamilton, Harrison and Drohan.
If you thought you were surprised, believing Durbin was exactly the sort of controllable, affordable, punch-above-his-weight kind of player the Brewers tend to build around, imagine how the manager felt.
“You know, it hurt me when I heard it being rumored,” Murphy said. “At first I’m like, ‘No way!’ It would be like [trading] Sal [Frelick]. But when they talked about the whole package … I felt like, ‘OK, we need some pitching depth. We’re very, very young. We need some pitching.’”
And they will need more.
This season is just getting started.
“For me, he’s the right guy,” Brewers pitching coach Chris Hook said of Drohan. “He’s 27 years old, a lot of Triple-A experience. I think he’s in a good position to do well for us.”