Milwaukee

Brewers

Bauers takes a seat for the second straight contest as he continues to deal with abdominal soreness. It’s possible he’ll wind up requiring a trip to the injured list if he’s not feeling better in a couple days. It’ll be Andrew Vaughn handling the cold corner in his absence.

Harrison gets the ball for Wednesday’s showdown against the Pirates following a one-month absence due to forearm tightness. The 24-year-old southpaw was a prominent breakout candidate in the first half, registering a sparkling 3.01 ERA, 1.08 WHIP and 101/20 K/BB ratio across 83 2/3 innings over 17 starts, delivering top-20 fantasy value among starting pitchers in the process. He draws a favorable matchup in his return from the injured list and shouldn’t have a ton of workload restrictions over the final two months.

Anderson heads to the minors to make room for lefty starter Kyle Harrison on Milwaukee’s roster. The 29-year-old has been a mainstay in the club’s relief mix for the last couple years and holds a strong 3.70 ERA, 1.11 WHIP and 41/18 K/BB ratio across 48 2/3 innings this season. He still has options left, which is why he’s the odd-man out.

McCalvy reports that the Brewers’ initial proposal “was also three prospects, according to sources. All three were hitters, and at least two were Top 100 prospects.” While McCalvy is unsure exactly which three names were in the final proposal, he reports that “one of them was shortstop Luis Peña,” who is the18th-ranked prospect on MLB Pipeline’s Top 100. This season, Peña is hitting .308/.396/.447 in 45 games between Single-A and High-A with two home runs, 19 RBI, and 22 steals. The Brewers must have been comfortable enough with the recent performance of Cooper Pratt to deal Peña, but the Tigers went in another direction. Perhaps they preferred Zyhir Hope’s upside or wanted a pitching prospect like River Ryan. Those are the answers we’re unlikely to ever get.

Vaughn smoked a homer to center in the fourth to give the Brew Crew a 2-1 lead in the fourth. It’s just the fifth homer of the season for the 28-year-old, but that number is a little more understandable considering he’s only played in 69 games in 2026. Despite the lack of power production, Vaughn has been effective when healthy as seen in his .874 OPS over his 187 plate appearances.

Chourio tied the game 1-1 with a solo homer off Jared Jones. He got Jones again later with an RBI single up the middle to extend the Brewers’ cushion to 3-1 on the season. It’s the first homer of August for Chourio, and just the second since the start of July for the uber-talented 22-year-old. It would be more surprising than not if the balls don’t start traveling over the fence for Chourio over the final two months.

Megill was efficient again, and while that comes with no strikeouts, he didn’t allow a hit or walk while lowering his ERA to 2.76 and picking p his 19th save. There’s the occasional clunker here and there for Megill, but in general, the job gets done.

Henderson gave up a pair of home runs, but both came with no one on to make them more digestible. Outside of the roundtrippers the 24-year-old was outstanding with eight strikeouts against one walk while throwing 55-of-83 pitches for strikes. He’s now 6-1 on the season with an excellent 2.70 ERA on the season, and a chance to make both numbers better is scheduled to come next week against the Padres in San Diego.

Bauers was slated to hit third in this one with Christian Yelich being dropped in the lineup. He’s also been battling a toe issue recently. It’ll be Garrett Mitchell moving up to the third spot in his place and Yelich bumping up to fifth. It doesn’t sound like a significant concern, but fantasy managers should keep an eye on his status for the remainder of the week.

Brewers manager Pat Murphy told reporters they’re moving Yelich down in an effort to generate a spark and get things trending in a different direction. It’ll be Jake Bauers moving up to the third spot in front of cleanup hitter William Contreras to face Pirates starter Jared Jones. Yelich has been ice-cold since last month’s All-Star break, hitting .192 (10-for-52) with one homer in 13 games.