Another Brewers' reliever placed on the IL ahead of four-game series with Arizona

Back on August 16, the Milwaukee Brewers placed left-handed long reliever DL Hall on the injured list with a right oblique strain. While the injury is not thought to be too severe, with Hall likely returning prior to the end of the regular season, losing a bullpen staple at this point in the season is never easy. However, just nine days later, the Brewers have sustained another blow to their relief corps. Ahead of tonight's series opener, the team announced that right-hander Grant Anderson has been placed on the 15-day IL, retroactive to yesterday, with right ankle tendinitis.

It's a tough blow for Anderson, who hasn't allowed an earned run since August 1. Yes, he struggled in Saturday night's loss to the San Francisco Giants, surrendering three runs in one inning, but each of those runs was unearned as they followed a fielding error from Andruw Monasterio which kicked off the inning. Anderson was also forced to work around another error, this one by third baseman Anthony Seigler, in the inning, making it very difficult to fault the 28-year-old right-hander for his lackluster outing, despite him earning the loss on the stat sheet.

On the season, Anderson is maintaining a sub-3.00 ERA despite throwing more innings than any other Brewers' reliever this year. It's an unbelievable improvement from the 8.10 ERA that Anderson carried through 23 appearances for the Texas Rangers in 2024. He has become a necessary, versatile arm in the bullpen for Pat Murphy, one that can pitch in high or low leverage situations and can cover one or multiple innings.

Hopefully, it's a minimum stint on the 15-day IL for Anderson, as the Brewers will need his steady arm in their pen for the stretch run.

Brewers place Grant Anderson on IL, option Chad Patrick to Triple-A, recall Tobias Myers and Easton McGee from Nashville

Placing Anderson on the 15-day IL was not the only roster move that the Brewers made on Monday afternoon; they also sent Chad Patrick back down to Triple-A after making two spot starts for the big league club last week. It was two solid outings for Patrick, who has assumed the difficult role of being shuttled back and forth between Triple-A and the majors over the last week. He covered 10.1 total innings, surrendered five total earned runs, and struck out a combined 11 opposing hitters. He remains a very valuable asset for the Brewers, who may need to call upon his services once more before the season ends.

Replacing Anderson and Patrick on the big league roster will be Tobias Myers and Easton McGee. Myers has already been optioned to Triple-A four times on the season, and a player is only eligible to be optioned five times in a single season before they have to clear waivers in order to be reassigned to the minor leagues. Meaning, if the Brewers elect to send Myers back down to Triple-A, they will not be able to recall him once more without risking having to place him on waivers should they need to send him down once again. In other words, Myers is on his last risk-free stint in the majors for the 2025 season.

Myers, who was a breakout star for the Brewers in 2024, has pitched well out of the bullpen in his last three outings. He's covered two innings in each appearance and failed to surrender a single run. It remains to be seen whether the Brewers will eventually ask him to cover more than two or three innings out of the bullpen, but for now, that appears to be his role.

Meanwhile, McGee is also back with the big league club for the fifth time, meaning he runs the same risk as Myers of having to be placed on waivers if he is optioned, recalled, and optioned again this season. With just over a month of regular season games remaining, it's not a huge risk, but it's still worth mentioning as it could dictate the Brewers roster moves down the stretch.

McGee was really solid in his first three stints in the majors this year, but struggled in his fourth and most recent one. In that stint, which lasted just over a week, McGee made just one appearance and allowed five earned runs to the Washington Nationals in a game that the Brewers won 16-9. As such, his season ERA of 7.36 looks a lot worse than McGee has pitched this season.

As the team continues their stretch of 19 games in 18 days, which is now down to eight games in the next eight days, having a couple of fresh arms on the pitching staff is a necessity, especially considering how much their relievers were asked to work this weekend.