MILWAUKEE -- A few days before the Pirates’ 4-2 loss to the Brewers on Wednesday afternoon at American Family Field, Jacob Stallings mentioned to Steven Brault what it was like not having him around.

“It's been really weird not having him in the dugout on my off-days just to hang out with and talk to,” Stallings said. “He's, obviously, a big personality, in a good way. He brings a lot of energy and just a lot of positivity to the clubhouse.”

Stallings was likely talking about the stretch of time after Brault started a rehab assignment on July 11, but it could easily account for most of the first four months of the season, too.

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Brault missed all of Pittsburgh’s first 107 games of the season, having suffered a left lat strain near the end of Spring Training that landed him on the 60-day injured list on April 1 and forced him to slowly work his way back to full strength. But after making four appearances in rehab stints with Triple-A Indianapolis and Low-A Bradenton, Brault finally rejoined the big league club and made his season debut on Wednesday.

“It was really cool. It felt like being back where I should be. It felt like being back home,” Brault said. “I say that for, one, because I love pitching in the big leagues and, two, I feel like I’ve pitched in Milwaukee every other start in my career. I’ve done this a lot here. So it was really nice to be back.

“But just in general, to be back against the best hitters in the world. This is a good lineup. So it was a good little test for the first start back.”

As expected, Brault looked like a pitcher still working his way back into form. He posted just a 12.5 percent whiff rate (four whiffs on 32 swings), and the average velocity on his pitches was down across the board from his averages last season.

In the first inning, the Brewers looked like they might hit screamers off Brault for the entirety of the game. They put two hard-hit balls in play -- a 98.6 mph single from first baseman Eduardo Escobar and a 103.2 mph lineout from right fielder Avisaíl García -- while a third fell just below 90 mph.

But Brault escaped the inning with no damage, and then he started to settle in for the rest of his day. Milwaukee got to him with a two-out RBI single by Escobar in the third, but that was all the scoring for the Brewers vs. Brault as the left-hander pitched perfect second and fourth innings. By the time he was taken out of the game, Brault had earned 14 called strikes, signaling that he was gaining some control of the edges of the plate, and held the Brewers to just the lone run on three hits.

“A lot of it was getting over that initial adrenaline rush of being back in the big leagues again,” Brault said. “It’s been, gosh, five months or whatever that I’ve been out. So, kind of settling in after that, just more consistent with the release point and everything and throwing it down the middle less. That definitely helps, not giving up so many hard-hit balls.”

Pirates manager Derek Shelton didn’t commit to an inning or pitch limit for Brault’s first start of the year, instead stating that the only goal was for Brault to come out of the game feeling healthy. However, once Brault finished the bottom of the fourth at exactly 75 pitches in a tie ballgame, he didn’t come back out for the bottom of the fifth.

While he wasn’t qualified to pick up the win after John Nogowski gave Pittsburgh a 2-1 lead with a sacrifice fly off Milwaukee starter Freddy Peralta, Brault appeared to have set a solid tone for the staff when Cody Ponce set the Brewers down in order in the fifth and sixth. But a two-out rally in the bottom of the seventh led to a three-run shot for Milwaukee’s Rowdy Tellez, ultimately sinking the Pirates’ ship for good.

Regardless of the end result, starting a big league game for the first time in 2021 was a step in the right direction for Brault.

“It’s kind of nice to face a good team and not get shellacked the first start back,” he said. “I think it’ll be a good progression, a good build, so I’m excited to see where we go from here.”