Brewers starting pitcher-turned-relief prospect called up, used in new role

Recently, it came to light that a former top Milwaukee Brewers pitching prospect was being developed into a new role with the organization, at least for the rest of this year. On Sunday, fans got to see him in action in this new role at the big league level for the very first time.

Prior to Sunday's series finale against the Oakland A's, the Brewers recalled pitcher Aaron Ashby from the Triple-A Nashville Sounds. He took the place of pitcher Nick Mears, who was placed on the injured list with right forearm inflammation.

At one point, Ashby was a top pitching prospect in the Brewers organization and had a chance to play a major part in the starting rotation going into 2023. A year-long injury ruined those chances and poor performance coming back from it kept him from getting there this year as well.

But then recently it came to light that the Brewers were trying Ashby out in a new role down in Triple-A, that of a relief pitcher. Results had been quite positive over his last several games and now it was time to see if it would work at the big league level.

He got the chance to prove himself right away. With the Brewers down to the A's 4-2 after six innings and starter Frankie Montas at 106 pitches on the day, Ashby was called upon in relief. The results ended up being positive as he faced seven batters and struck out two of them while walking one and giving up no hits in two scoreless innings.

Having another effective weapon would make a strong bullpen even stronger. The Brewers have the third best bullpen ERA in the all of MLB after Sunday's games at 3.34 and an elite relief corps is huge for teams with aspirations of a long playoff run.

Unfortunately, the Mears injury just adds to the team's woes in trading for relief pitchers at the MLB trade deadline. He has a 6.75 ERA in 11 games since joining the Brewers and had given up five earned runs over his previous 1.1 innings.

Not every prospect gets an easy, straightforward path to the big leagues and that's turning out to be true with Ashby. As long as you get there eventually and stay, though, that's all that really matters.