Aaron Civale, Frankie Montas earn praise for mechanical adjustments on the Brewers

The Milwaukee Brewers may be sporting a three-game losing streak entering Saturday's action, but they remain comfortably atop the NL Central with a healthy nine-game lead over the Chicago Cubs.

The Brewers have run into a bit of a rough patch over the past few days, but the concern-o-meter should be very low, as the team is still one of the deepest in baseball on both offensive and the pitching side of things.

Two pitchers in particular, Frankie Montas and Aaron Civale, have done an excellent job since coming over to Milwaukee around the trade deadline. The veteran right-handers have provided the exact stabilizing presences the Brewers needed them to be when they acquired them, and the industry is beginning to take notice.

One outlet's praise was particularly interesting. Eno Sarris of The Athletic named both Montas and Civale (subscription required) as two of the starters whose post-trade deadline mechanical adjustments stand out above the rest. The pair of hurlers each have had their arsenals tweaked a bit by the Brewers and, to this point, it's been working wonders for all involved.

Montas, Civale earn praise for arsenal changes on the Brewers

Frankie Montas and his cutter

Montas, 31, is a nine-year veteran who has experienced the highest of highs and the lowest of lows at the big league level. He was in the midst of an injury-marred tenure on the Reds when the Brewers traded for him, but he's excelled on his new club.

He's 2-2 with a 3.92 ERA, 3.59 FIP and 108 ERA+ in 39 innings on the Crew. His strikeouts are up, his walks are down, his ERA has come down more than a full run and he's allowing far less hits than he was in a Reds uniform.

According to Sarris, a slight adjustment to his pitch selection has been doing the trick. Montas has historically thrown both a slider and a hard cutter, but the cutter is practically the same pitch as his slider. The Reds had him throwing his cutter against left-handed batters and his slider against right-handed batters. While the numbers don't clearly support one pitch over the other, the Brewers are having Montas ditch his slider in favor of the cutter.

Simply put: this is because there's little to no true difference in the offerings outside of velocity. In today's game, if a pitcher has two pitches that are the same but one is much five mph slower, getting rid of the slower offering in favor of the heat is always going to be the best choice.

Per Sarris, righties slugged 1.286 against Montas' slider and only .273 against the cutter. This adjustment seems to have been the right choice.

Aaron Civale and his slider

Civale, 29, is a six-year veteran whose spent the vast majority of his career in Cleveland. He spent parts of the past two years in Tampa Bay as a starter on the Rays, but his numbers were nowhere near where they had been during his Cleveland prime.

Since coming over to the Brewers at this year's deadline, he's 3-2 with a 3.88 ERA, 4.62 FIP and 109 ERA+ across 53.1 innings. Interestingly, Montas moved on from his slider and Civale has brought his back into the fold.

Sarris points out that Civale used a cutter as his main fastball and a sweeper to retire batters, but he needed something to use in between the two offerings. So he brought back his slider, which is a pitch that has a velocity right in between the cutter and sweeper. It's the perfect balance pitch between the two main ones he leans on the most.

He also mentions that both adjustments are ones Civale and Montas have had to make in the past, so the changes weren't exactly bringing about new ideals for them. All they had to do was make a few familiar tweaks and they'd up their game. In typical Brewers fashion, they've found a way to bring out some untapped potential where it was least expected.