Kyle Harrison is getting another opportunity to prove he belongs on the Brewers' playoff roster

With their fourth consecutive NL Central title and fifth in the last six years already clinched, the Milwaukee Brewers' attention over the final 11 games will turn to how best to set themselves up for a deep postseason run. Part of that means securing the No. 1 overall seed, as such an accomplishment would give the Brewers a first-round bye and home-field advantage throughout the postseason, meaning Pat Murphy's crew can't let off the gas just because they've secured the division title.

However, the other side of setting themselves up for success in the postseason is ensuring their pitching staff is lined up for a deep run in October. Not only does that mean giving rest to their young starters whenever possible, but it also means determining which roles certain pitchers should assume in the postseason in order to give the Brewers their best chance at success. In that regard, several questions remain unanswered as the end of the regular season draws nearer.

The biggest remaining question is what role southpaw Kyle Harrison will have on the Brewers' postseason roster. Harrison was one of the most dominant starting pitchers in all of baseball during the first half of the season, but ever since a bout of forearm tightness kept him on the IL from early July to early August, Harrison simply hasn't been the same. The 25-year-old left-hander's performance has been so inconsistent over the last few weeks that Milwaukee was forced to relegate him to a bullpen role earlier this month. In Harrison's lone relief appearance since the role change, he faced four batters, allowed four hits, and was eventually tagged with four earned runs despite not collecting a single out.

That said, the upside on Harrison remains too high to ignore. If the breakout southpaw is even 80% of the pitcher he was during the first half of the regular season, he would be an extremely valuable piece of the postseason puzzle for the Brew Crew.

The Brewers aren't giving up on Harrison just yet. As announced by the team earlier today, Harrison will now start Thursday afternoon's series finale against the Pittsburgh Pirates, moving scheduled starter Dustin May back to Friday's series opener with the Baltimore Orioles.

Brewers shuffle rotation schedule, turn to Kyle Harrison for Thursday's series finale against Pirates

The Brewers initially lined up Jacob Misiorowski, Logan Henderson, and May, their presumed top three postseason starters, for their series against the Pirates, but after clinching the NL Central last night, Milwaukee has elected to move things around and have Harrison start tomorrow's series finale.

Despite giving up four hits to the four batters he faced in his relief appearance over the weekend, there were some reasons to be encouraged by Harrison's recent outing. For starters, Harrison's fastball velocity, which had dipped throughout the month of August, returned to 96-97 mph. Part of that was due to the fact that Harrison was expecting to throw a shorter outing, but it was encouraging nonetheless. Additionally, two of the four hits Harrison allowed left the bat at less than 75 mph, suggesting the Brewers' southpaw was the victim of bad luck in his relief appearance.

To trust Harrison with meaningful innings in the postseason, the Brewers will need to see their young starter look like his first-half self in multiple appearances down the stretch. If the uptick in velocity remains and Harrison starts to restore the vertical movement on his fastball that made it so dominant during the first half of the season, it's by no means out of the question that he plays an important role on the playoff roster. That's undoubtedly a tall task given how Harrison has looked these past few weeks, but the Brewers are giving their talented young southpaw an opportunity to prove himself down the stretch.

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