Advertisement

Early pair of injuries has Brewers' spring training already testing roster's depth

Eric Cole
Eric Cole

Reviewing The Brew

Wild Card Series - New York Mets v Milwaukee Brewers - Game 3 / Patrick McDermott/GettyImages

For the Milwaukee Brewers or any MLB team, the goal with spring training is to prepare for the start of the season without anyone getting hurt in the process. While inevitable when you have professional athletes running around for weeks, it is deeply irritating when a player gets hurt when the games don't even count yet.

The Brewers, in particular, need to get through camp healthy is a necessity. The team did not make many roster additions this offseason and with Milwaukee's departures on both sides of the ball, the Brewers are not overly deep at the moment unless you are very bullish on the organization's prospects.

Unfortunately, the Brewers are off to a rough start to achieving that goal as fans got a pair of brutal injury updates on Blake Perkins and JB Bukauskas.

Brewers Injury Update: Blake Perkins and JB Bukauskas already out with injuries

Thankfully, the core of the Brewers' roster was spared by the injury bug and the injuries came at some positions of relative strength. Perkins was already going to be struggling for playing time with the sheer amount of outfield talent Milwaukee has and Bukauskas' health had him coming into camp as a question mark already.

The problem comes with the aforementioned depth which has now taken another hit. While it is absolutely true that Perkins' shortcomings at the plate are frustrating, his defense gives him a high floor compared to the team's other outfield options going into 2025. Now, Perkins' broken shin takes him out of the conversation altogether and could be a big boost to Manuel Margot's roster chances.

Bukauskas' case might be a more dire situation. Not only do the Brewers not have a crazy amount of bullpen depth especially after the Devin Williams trade and Bukauskas has the arm talent to be a force out of the bullpen. Unfortunately, a lat injury is the latest in a line of ailments that have cost Bukauskas so much playing time in recent years and this injury could force the Brewers' hand and cost him his job.

More Brewers News from Reviewing the Brew

Eric Cole

Eric Cole

I started my career writing about baseball covering the Atlanta Braves for SB Nation's Talking Chop back in 2015 which has since been renamed Battery Power. After years of writing for those fine folks, I made the decision to take over as Site Expert at House That Hank Built before becoming a full-time MLB Staff Writer for FanSided in 2023. Along the way, I have been a guest on multiple ESPN radio affiliates as well as 680 The Fan and 92.9 The Game to discuss Braves baseball and especially Braves prospects and was a long-time host on the Battery Power podcast. These days, I continue to write about the Braves as well as covering the Astros, Padres, and Angels with particular expertise with minor league coverage, the MLB Draft, and bashing Anthony Rendon when possible. When I am not writing about or talking about baseball (which is seldom), I am an avid baseball card collector (Maddux and Soroka being my primary personal collections) and I also collect shark teeth. All other sports are mostly dead to me as my Bills have broken my heart too many times.