Milwaukee Brewers: Wei Chung Wang Called Up in September

The Milwaukee Brewers made several September call ups on Friday. Among them was Wei-Chung Wang, who has turned in an excellent season for Colorado Springs.

Wang, with Taylor Williams and Junior Guerra, Brandon Woodruff, among others, received the call to the Milwaukee Brewers.

Wang was the Brewers Rule 5 pick for the 2014 season. And things did not go well for him that season. In 14 games, Wang pitched to a 10.90 ERA over 17.1 innings of work. He gave up six homers, walked nine and struck out only 13 during those innings. It was a miserable first half of 2014.

He was able to stay with the Brewers after sticking on the 25 man roster long enough to qualify as being here a full season. He was sent down to the minors to finish developing and now it looks like that has paid off.

In Triple-A Colorado Springs this year, Wang has pitched to a 2.05 ERA over 47 games with only 12 walks and 48 strikeouts. He’s been an excellent reliever out of the ‘pen for the Sky Sox. Now he looks to do the same back with Milwaukee.

He likely still won’t be given the ball in high leverage situations due to the number of different guys already there that can handle it. But Wang will provide two things the Milwaukee Brewers have been lacking lately but absolutely should have.

The first is another lefty arm in that bullpen. Josh Hader has done an excellent job as the lone lefty in the bullpen. But it would be nice to have another southpaw back there. He can fill in on the days Hader isn’t available because he went multiple innings the day before. Also, he can provide good matchups against lefty hitters. The Brewers have been forced to use righty Oliver Drake as a sort of lefty specialist.

The second thing Wang provides that the Brewers have lacked is more Wei-Chung Wang Wednesdays. Those videos took off back in 2014 and they were hilarious. And, at that point, the only good part of him being on the roster. But now that he can be an effective pitcher and bring that fun and humor into those videos, he could be more of a fan-favorite.

This Milwaukee Brewers team likes to keep it loose and have fun. We’ve seen that all season, and now with the addition of Wang, we could see even more of it. He’s turned himself into an effective reliever and Wang is no longer a dreaded sight coming out of that bullpen.

Next: Can the Brewers land Shohei Otani?

The Brewers find themselves in the heat of a pennant race and September call ups are going to be more important now than in the past two years as they will be playing in meaningful games for this club. Bringing up seven players to their roster is more than what the Brewers normally do and there’s going to be a second wave of them coming.