MILWAUKEE – Brandon Woodruff would have started the Triple-A Nashville Sounds’ home opener on Tuesday night had he and the Brewers taken the cautious approach. Few would have blamed them for building in extra time to prepare for this season, considering he’s so recently removed from a two-year rehab from shoulder surgery, and a comeback bid cut short last season by another injury.
But Woodruff wanted to push it. He wanted to start this season in the Major Leagues.
With his fastball still gaining steam but enough guile to complete five quality innings, Woodruff won his 2026 debut, a 6-2 Brewers victory over the Rays at American Family Field that turned when Brice Turang’s two-run single became a go-ahead, three-run play in the fifth. It happened just in time to make a winner of Woodruff, who surrendered a pair of solo home runs but otherwise kept Tampa Bay at bay over 67 pitches to begin his ninth season in a Brewers uniform.
“If I was going to use bullets, I didn’t want to use them in the Minor Leagues,” Woodruff said. “It’s a good feeling breaking camp and getting here and being with everybody. I really wanted to do that. And with the pitch count I was at, if I couldn’t get through five innings, that’s on me.”
Woodruff, Milwaukee’s longest-tenured player, and playing on the highest single-season salary for a pitcher in franchise history after he accepted a $22.05 million qualifying offer to return for this season, is more important than ever to the Brewers. He’s the only starter on the team with at least two years of Major League service. So when he said he was ready to pitch in the big leagues, even though he was one step behind the other starters in building up pitch count, the club put him on the Opening Day roster.
“It wasn’t done just because he said he wanted to do it,” said manager Pat Murphy. “But his confidence and belief in himself that he was ready had some influence, for sure.
“And yes, you trust a guy after he’s been through the things that he’s been through.”
Woodruff has been through a lot. He was surging to the finish in 2023 when his right shoulder gave out, leading to surgery that fall and a rehab that stretched all the way until July 2025. He returned with 12 terrific starts, going 7-2 with a 3.20 ERA, only to go down again with a right lat strain on the eve of the postseason.
Now he’s back, touching 95.1 mph with the fastball on Tuesday and holding the Rays to two runs on four hits, including homers from Jonathan Aranda in the first inning and Nick Fortes in the fifth. Woodruff threw 45 of his 67 pitches for strikes, and 56 fastballs (including four-seamers, sinkers and cutters) before yielding to reliever Jared Koenig at the start of the sixth with a 3-2 lead.
Woodruff improved to 15-1 with a 2.20 ERA over his last 25 starts at home, and the Brewers are 22-3 in those games.
“He’s a pitcher,” Murphy said. “That still works, guys who can pitch and have movement. For me, that was really exciting.”
Run support came in strange ways. The Brewers were hitless for much of the night against a Rays left-hander who knows all about losing time to injuries. Shane McClanahan, making his first Major League start in 972 days and flashing “[Tarik] Skubal-like” stuff, according to Murphy, didn’t allow a hit until Brandon Lockridge singled with one out in the fifth inning. When Joey Ortiz walked two batters later, the Brewers had their first threat.
Turang followed with a two-run single and was caught in a rundown between first and second base. He was about to be tagged out at second – a split-second before Ortiz scored the go-ahead run – when Rays center fielder Cedric Mullins lost the baseball while applying the tag. Initially, second base umpire Chad Fairchild ruled Turang out, but the Brewers challenged and won. The third run counted.
The Brewers piled on in the sixth, when Gary Sánchez hit a two-out homer ahead of another odd moment. Jake Bauers followed with an infield single but was called out by first base umpire CB Bucknor for missing the bag, even though replays showed Bauers stepping right on the middle of first base.
Again, the Brewers challenged, and again they won. It led to an insurance run when Lockridge doubled home Bauers, who added more insurance when he homered in the eighth. Bauers hit nine homers in the month of March, if you count his seven in Spring Training and two in the first five games of the regular season.
For Woodruff and the Brewers, it was a winning formula.
“My one and only goal this year is being healthy and being available,” Woodruff said. “I would rather throw here than in Nashville. That was important to me.”