PITTSBURGH -- Travis Shaw hasn’t exactly been tearing it up at Triple-A, but the Brewers have a plan in place to bring him back to the big leagues at the beginning of next week.

Manager Craig Counsell said the team intended for Shaw to continue playing for San Antonio through the end of the Missions’ weekend series at home against Omaha. The Brewers are off Monday, then resume play at Miller Park on Tuesday against the Marlins.

“Our thought on Travis is he’s making progress,” Counsell said. “Health-wise, he’s doing very good.”

Restoring Shaw to the active roster could require a tough move, since the only Brewers infielders with options remaining are Keston Hiura and Orlando Arcia -- and Arcia isn’t going anywhere. Neither is outfielder Ben Gamel, who has an option remaining but has become a key piece of Milwaukee’s outfield puzzle. Utility man Hernán Pérez and slumping first basemen Jesús Aguilar and Eric Thames are all out of options.

Hiura, Milwaukee’s top prospect per MLB Pipeline and No. 15 in all of baseball, was promoted to the Majors when Shaw hit the injured list. Hiura entered Thursday with a .261/.306/.457 slash line and three home runs in his first 46 Major League at-bats.

“When we get to Sunday, we’ll have to make a decision,” Counsell said. “But Travis is going to join us on the homestand.”

Shaw topped 30 home runs in each of the past two seasons but has slumped from the start of 2019. He was slashing .163/.266/.281 when he sprained his right wrist swinging the bat in Philadelphia on May 13 and was placed on the 10-day injured list.

In the first six games of a Minor League rehabilitation assignment, Shaw was 4-for-23 (.174) with no extra-base hits, three walks and six strikeouts. He was 3-for-10 with three walks and one strikeout in the Missions’ just-completed series at Memphis.

“We felt like he had a good series in Memphis, and we’ll try to build on that one more series,” Counsell said. “My thought is I would rather be too slow on this rather than too fast, as far as bringing him here.”

The Brewers’ other player out on rehab, Manny Piña (right hamstring), was scheduled to start at catcher for Class A Wisconsin on Thursday and may also play Friday before rejoining the Brewers on Saturday or Sunday, Counsell said.

Claudio seeking answers
The Brewers remain puzzled by the degree to which left-handed reliever Alex Claudio has struggled to retire right-handed hitters, and they are working hard to find a fix, said bullpen coach Steve Karsay.

That process involved getting input from Claudio about periods in his career during which he felt his mechanics and results felt best synched, and comparing video from those stretches with recent ones, including an outing at Minnesota on Tuesday in which Claudio took over a scoreless game in the seventh inning and was charged with three runs (two earned) on two hits while retiring one of the four men he faced. His fly-ball rate is up more than 10 percent over last year with the Rangers.

“We’re looking at the way he’s attacking, looking at mechanics, looking at [arm] slot, looking at the delivery,” Karsay said. “This is a tough one. We haven’t had him; the organization hasn’t had him. So we’re communicating with him about what he’s done in the past, and we’re looking at his profile to see what hitters are doing compared to the past. We’re using every avenue to get him back to his best.”

Counsell noted that Claudio has done the job against left-handed hitters (.552 OPS), but the manager remains convinced that Claudio is capable of facing right-handers.

“He’s struggled against right-handed hitters, but he’s done his job against left-handed hitters for us, and we’re going to continue to ask him to do that,” Counsell said. “We have to get him going against right-handed hitters, because we need him in those situations, I think. I don’t think we can afford to pitch him to just one hitter per game.”

“It’s just a minor adjustment that will have to be made,” Karsay said. “We will figure it out as a group.”