Milwaukee

Brewers

Bauers’ homer off left-hander Eduardo Rodriguez made it 2-1 in the seventh, and the Brewers added one more later in the inning before holding on to win. Bauers got the nod over Blake Perkins today, starting against a lefty for the 13th time in 29 chances this year. His 16 homers, 51 runs scored and 54 RBI are all career highs, though he still has fewer plate appearances this season (314) than he did in 2018 (388), 2019 (423) and 2024 (346). His .861 OPS is nearly 200 points better than his career mark of .672 from 2018-25.

Nothing came easy for Sproat today. He threw at least 19 pitches in all four of his innings, totaling 92 in all, while giving up five hits and walking three. It’s the eighth time in 15 starts that Sproat has failed to last five innings, though he did complete five in four of five starts while going 2-0 in June. His stuff and his strikeout rate have ticked up a bit as the season has gone along, and he’s pretty intriguing in fantasy leagues right now even with all of the quick hooks. He’ll face the Pirates in his final start of the first half.

Megill turned in his 12th consecutive scoreless appearance. Abner Uribe has remained very good as well, but Megill just isn’t opening the door for the Brewers to switch closers again.

Since he shoulders a very heavy workload for a catcher, the Brewers are careful to mix in off days for Contreras to get him off of his feet once in a while, with Sunday afternoon games being the most common. Gary Sanchez will start in his place behind the dish and bat seventh against Diamondbacks’ southpaw Eduardo Rodriguez.

The 26-year-old southpaw has made four appearances out of the Brewers’ bullpen this season, registering a 3.38 ERA, 1.88 WHIP and a 10/4 K/BB ratio across 5 1/3 innings. He’ll add a fresh arm to the club’s bullpen for at least a few days while they decide how to replace Brandon Woodruff (shoulder) in their rotation.

As expected, Woodruff lands on the injured list after re-injuring his right labrum during Saturday’s start against the Diamondbacks. While the Brewers haven’t given a timeline for his return, if it’s similar to the last time he dealt with this same issue, he wouldn’t return until mid-August. Drew Rom was recalled from Triple-A Nashville in a corresponding move on Sunday to add a fresh arm to the Brewers’ bullpen.

Yoho retired all eight batters he faced, reeling off 2 2/3 scoreless frames on just 27 pitches, after Brewers veteran starter Brandon Woodruff left Saturday’s start against the Diamondbacks with an injury. The 26-year-old was one of the more promising relief prospects in the game in the not-so-distant past. He’s shown some encouraging signs over the last few months and should get to stick around with Milwaukee heading into the second half.

It’s the same injury that cost Woodruff six weeks earlier in the season. The 33-year-old struggled to three runs allowed over 3 2/3 innings, and his fastball velocity was down to 87 mph in the contest. If Woodruff were to miss the same amount of time, it’d put him back in the middle of August. Fantasy managers need to be prepared for the right-hander to not be available for the long haul now, and the Brewers will need to make yet another change to their rotation.

Chourio was given Saturday off originally, but he replaced Jake Bauers in the contest and was able to pick up a solo homer in the ninth. Unfortunately for Milwaukee, that homer came with the Brew Crew trailing by two, and no one was on base. Chourio has homered 13 times in the first half of 2026 with a slash of .293/.350/.529 to go with those roundtrippers.

Yelich got the Brewers to within a run when he took Merrill Kelly deep for a two-run blast; his sixth of the season. The 34-year-old has his first homer of July after going deep just once in the previous month. Yelich doesn’t have the same type of pop he once did, but it seems unlikely that he won’t go through a power surge at some point this summer. He definitely needs one.