{"id":76386,"date":"2024-06-11T08:45:41","date_gmt":"2024-06-11T12:45:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=76386"},"modified":"2024-06-11T08:45:41","modified_gmt":"2024-06-11T12:45:41","slug":"colin-rea-gem-provides-brewers-a-respite-from-pitching-woes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/06\/11\/colin-rea-gem-provides-brewers-a-respite-from-pitching-woes\/","title":{"rendered":"Veteran Pitcher&#8217;s Gem Provides MIlwaukee Brewers A Respite From Pitching Woes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>MILWAUKEE<\/strong> \u2013 In a year when there has been so much uncertainty surrounding the Milwaukee Brewers\u2019 starting rotation, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/r\/reaco01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-06-11_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Colin Rea<\/a> has been a model of consistency.<\/p>\n<p>The veteran right-hander has made 11 starts, second only to staff ace <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/p\/peralfr01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-06-11_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Freddy Peralta<\/a>. He&#8217;s made 13 appearances overall while posting a 5-2 record and 3.31 ERA. This includes a 2-0 record and 1.64 ERA over his last four outings.<\/p>\n<p>Rea was at his absolute best Monday night, allowing just a run on three hits and stuck out four without walking a batter over seven innings in the Brewers\u2019 3-1 victory over the Toronto Blue Jays at American Family Field.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Code. Red.<\/p>\n<p>Seven innings of one-run ball \ud83d\udd25 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/jxHjlc01XD\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/jxHjlc01XD<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Milwaukee Brewers (@Brewers) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Brewers\/status\/1800348904443249057?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">June 11, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>\u201cColin was magnificent,\u201d Brewers manager <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/search\/search.fcgi?pid=murphpa99,murphpa01&amp;search=Pat+Murphy&amp;utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-06-11_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Pat Murphy<\/a> said.<\/p>\n<p>That might be a bit of an understatement.<\/p>\n<p>Colin Rea breezed through his 85-pitch outing with relative ease. He threw first-pitch strikes to 21 of the 23 batters he faced and retired 13 of his final 14 batters.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Even though they&#8217;re an aggressive team, I think you&#8217;re setting yourself up for success when you get ahead in the count &#8212; whether that&#8217;s Strike 1 or making a pitch 1-1 to get to 1-2,\u201d Rea said. \u201cI think we did a pretty good job of that tonight.&#8221;<\/p>\n<h3>Colin Rea and His Journey to the Brewers<\/h3>\n<p>It was Rea\u2019s longest outing since June 7, 2016, when Rea was in just his second big-league season.<\/p>\n<p>Since then, he\u2019s missed one full year due to an injury and another while playing in Japan. In between, Rea spent time in the San Diego Padres and Chicago Cubs\u2019 minor-league systems. He even had a brief, nine-game MLB stint with the latter during the 2020 COVID season. Rea then returned to Japan for the 2021 season.<\/p>\n<p>He left his Japanese team that August, returning home to be closer to his family and signed with the Brewers, who called him up late in the season. Colin Rea went back to Japan in 2022, going 5-6 with a 3.96 ERA.<\/p>\n<p>He signed again with the Brewers in 2023 and, after opening the season at Triple-A Nashville, posted a 4.55 ERA in 26 appearances (22 starts) for Milwaukee, which signed him last November to a one-year deal with a team option for 2025.<\/p>\n<h3>Rea Saves Bullpen With Bad News Looming<\/h3>\n<p>Rea\u2019s bullpen-saving performance came as the Brewers braced themselves for even more bad news regarding their beleaguered rotation.<br \/>\nRookie left-hander <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/g\/gassero01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-06-11_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Robert Gasser<\/a> is scheduled to visit Dr. Keith Meister later this week for a third opinion on his ailing left elbow, and Murphy admitted before the game that he\u2019s preparing himself for the possibility of losing a third starting pitcher for the remainder of the season.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m pessimistic about it,\u201d Murphy said. \u201cI hope I\u2019m wrong about it, I really do.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Murphy\u2019s skepticism is justified, not only due to the persistent hex that has plagued his pitching staff all season.<\/p>\n<p>Bone spurs in his pitching elbow cut Gasser\u2019s spring training short and kept him at Triple-A Nashville to start the season. After finally getting called up, Gasser produced several impressive starts (2-0, 2.57 ERA with one walk over 28 innings) but landed on the IL with elbow soreness after his June 2 outing.<\/p>\n<h3>Robert Gasser&#8217;s Injury Is Worse Than Initially Thought<\/h3>\n<p>An initial exam by Milwaukee\u2019s medical staff resulted in a diagnosis of a strained flexor in the left elbow and a recommendation to rehab the injury. Gasser sought a second opinion from Dr. Neal ElAttrache, who confirmed the initial diagnosis but noted that while Gasser\u2019s ulnar collateral ligament wasn\u2019t ruptured, it wasn\u2019t full-strength and recommended Gasser <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/04\/07\/tommy-john-surgery-increase-epidemic\/\" target=\"_self\">undergo Tommy John reconstructive surgery<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>With such conflicting opinions, Gasser opted to get a third opinion to help clarify the severity of the injury and determine the best course of action.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe had an elbow injury early, came back and pitched very well,\u201d Murphy said. Four or five starts later, and it\u2019s back. One doctor says, \u201cget reconstruction.\u201d I don\u2019t think you say something that serious if, in fact, there is something wrong. So with that, his option is probably to come back and do the same thing he did before but then what are we going to get, how do we know and where\u2019s the kid\u2019s mental state going to be because he\u2019s a rookie.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo I\u2019m pessimistic about that.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3>Jackson Chourio Heating Up<\/h3>\n<p>With outfielder <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/p\/perkibl01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-06-11_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Blake Perkins<\/a> getting a day off Monday, Murphy put <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/c\/chourja01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-06-11_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jackson Chourio<\/a> in the starting lineup against a right-handed starter for the second time in three games. The rookie responded in a big way. He belted his seventh home run of the season in the third inning.<\/p>\n<p>A combination of offensive struggles and Perkins\u2019 emergence as an everyday option in center field led to decreased playing time for Chourio, especially against right-handers. But he\u2019s shown signs of heating up of late, slashing .313\/.313\/.563 over his last five games with a home run, five RBIs and an .875 OPS.<\/p>\n<h3>Streak Snapped Behind Colin Rea<\/h3>\n<p>Chourio\u2019s blast snapped a five-game stretch without a home run by a Brewers player. Meanwhile, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/a\/adamewi01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-06-11_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Willy Adames<\/a> snapped a personal 10-game homerless drought when he tagged <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/b\/berrijo01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-06-11_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jose Berrios<\/a> for his 10th of the season an inning later.<\/p>\n<p>Despite the inability to <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/05\/17\/brewers-high-powered-offense\/\" target=\"_self\">send balls over the fence<\/a>, the Brewers went 2-3 during that five-game stretch. This included a 10-0 victory over the Tigers last Friday, and they are an MLB-best 13-11 in games in which they don\u2019t hit a home run.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I like it when we&#8217;re hitting them,&#8221; Murphy said. &#8220;But there&#8217;s more ways to beat teams. Tonight, we needed the homer.&#8221;<\/p>\n<h3>Up Next<\/h3>\n<p>Carlos F. Rodriguez will become the 12th different pitcher to start a game for the Brewers this season. He makes his big-league debut Tuesday against the Blue Jays.<\/p>\n<p>Rodriguez, 22, is 4-5 with a 5.17 ERA in 12 appearances (11 starts) this season for Triple-A Nashville. He&#8217;s put together an impressive month of May, going 3-1 with a 3.03 ERA. That was good enough to earn International League Pitcher of the Month honors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MILWAUKEE \u2013 In a year when there has been so much uncertainty surrounding the Milwaukee Brewers\u2019 starting rotation, Colin Rea has been a model of consistency. The veteran right-hander has made 11 starts, second only to staff ace Freddy Peralta. He&#8217;s made 13 appearances overall while posting a 5-2 record and 3.31 ERA. This includes [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5129,"featured_media":76421,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[27,1071],"tags":[3886,2513,6506,645,21201,5854,3174],"class_list":["post-76386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-brewers","category-mlb","tag-colin-rea","tag-injured-list","tag-jackson-chourio","tag-nl-central","tag-pat-murphy","tag-robert-gasser","tag-willy-adames"],"modified_by":"Chris Drosehn","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5129"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76386\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}