Brewers: 3 Relievers Who Could Return from Injury and Help This Year

As an organization that is known for finding and developing talented pitchers, the Milwaukee Brewers rely heavily upon their pitching depth to win ball games. Unfortunately, sometimes injuries get in the way. This makes the notion that you could always use an extra pitcher ring true when it comes to the Crew.

The Brewers recently signed veteran Jake McGee to a major league deal, but that does not mean they are done adding arms to their roster. Milwaukee may choose to add more pitchers prior to the August 2nd trade deadline.

However, if by chance they do not add any more pitchers, the Brewers do have some in-house reliever options who could return from injury and help the team yet this year.

Here we will look at three relievers who could return from injury and help the Brewers this season.

1) RHP Justin Topa

Justin Topa has had a long and rough history of right elbow injuries. He has had Tommy John surgery twice and essentially has spent most of the last 18 months rehabbing.

He initially debuted with the Brewers in 2020 and performed well enough to be in the discussion to make the active roster out of camp in the spring of 2021. Unfortunately, he sustained a flexor strain and didn’t pitch for the Brewres until August.

Sadly, early in September he re-injured his elbow yet again and has been rehabbing all of this season. On July 23rd, the Brewers placed him on a rehab assignment. This likely will be a lengthy stint, but if the Brewers can get his blazing fastball and nasty slider back, he could be an asset out of the pen at some point in 2022.

2) RHP Luis Perdomo

Luis Perdomo missed all of 2021 recovering from Tommy John but came out and performed exceptionally well in spring training. He began the year with the Nashville Sounds but by May he found himself on the Brewers roster where over 10.1 innings he had a 1.74 ERA.

At the end of May, he was placed on the IL with an elbow effusion. He has not returned to the Brewers since but has been pitching in Nashville on a rehab assignment over the past couple weeks. Hopefully he will be ready to re-join the Brewers soon!

3) RHP Jake Cousins

2021 was an impressive rookie season for Jake Cousins. In 30 games he pitched to a 2.70 ERA along with recording 13.2 strikeouts per nine innings. His slider command was dialed in, and he overall was very hard to hit.

2022 got off to a bit of a rocky start, but it was later announced that he had a torn ulnar collateral ligament. He ended up getting multiple opinions on treatment options and ultimately elected against undergoing Tommy John Surgery and decided to rehab the elbow instead.

The Brewers have not provided any recent updates on his progress, so for now we are still under the assumption that there is a chance he could return this season. If he were to return healthy and look more like the Jake Cousins of 2021, that would provide a big boost to the Brewers bullpen. If he is able to return, though, it likely would not be until very late in the season.

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With three good relief pitchers currently recovering from injury, it will be interesting to see if the Brewers do, in fact, add more arms prior to the trade deadline.