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MILWAUKEE — Milwaukee Brewers closer Devin Williams is ready to make his 2024 debut after missing the first four months of the season with stress fractures in his back.
The Brewers announced before their Sunday afternoon game with the Miami Marlins that they had reinstated the two-time All-Star from the 60-day injured list. They also designated right-hander Janson Junk for assignment and sent right-hander JB Bukauskas to Triple-A Nashville on a rehabilitation assignment.
“It’s gratifying, I guess you would say,” Williams said. “I put in a lot of hard work up to this point over the past couple of months. To be in this position and back on the field, it feels great.”
Williams, who turns 30 on Sept. 21, pitched four scoreless innings in a rehabilitation assignment with Nashville and Single-A Wisconsin. The right-hander struck out six, walked two and allowed only one hit.
“To be honest, I was more focused on how I felt than results, but both were really good,” Williams said. “I felt good. My stuff was moving the way it’s supposed to. I was executing pitches. So it was all good.”
The 2020 NL Rookie of the Year is coming off a 2023 season in which he went 8-3 with a 1.53 ERA and 36 saves to earn his second NL Reliever of the Year award. He struck out 87 batters in just 58⅔ innings.
Williams has spent his entire career in Milwaukee and has gone 26-10 with 54 saves and a 1.89 ERA. He has 337 strikeouts in 214 innings.
Even without Williams, Milwaukee entered Sunday with a 3.33 bullpen ERA that ranked third in the majors, behind only Cleveland and Atlanta. That relief corps has played a major role in helping the Brewers lead the NL Central as they attempt to defend their division title.
“I think the hard part was just having to watch some of the games and not be able to have any effect at all,” Williams said. “I haven’t really had to do that since I’ve come up. But we got through it and we’re here now. These guys picked up the weight and they’ve done a great job of filling in. It’s been amazing to watch.”
Williams’ return comes at an ideal time as he boosts a bullpen that has endured a major workload and lost Bryan Hudson and Rob Zastryzny to the injured list the past few days. The Brewers entered Sunday having received an MLB-low 493⅓ innings from their starting pitchers.
Milwaukee’s relievers have shown signs of wear lately. The Brewers squandered a 3-2 lead when their bullpen allowed five runs in the seventh inning in a 7-3 loss to the Marlins on Saturday.
The Brewers did add some depth to their relief corps Saturday by acquiring Nick Mears from the Colorado Rockies. Mears went 1-4 with a 5.56 ERA in 41 games with Colorado, but the 27-year-old right-hander believes he has found a reason behind some of his earlier struggles.
Mears said he recently learned he’d been tipping pitches for about 1½ months.
“A player actually told one of my buddies on the Rockies, and he came up to me and was like, ‘Hey, this is what you’re doing. You should probably change it,'” he said.
Mears said he learned about it just before the All-Star break and made an adjustment. He has posted a 1.80 ERA while holding opponents to a .160 batting average over his past 12 appearances.
“Hitting is hard, no matter how you put it,” Mears said. “But I think it’s a little easier when you have an idea of if it’s a fastball or an offspeed pitch.”
Junk, 28, had gone 0-0 with a 6.75 ERA in five appearances for Milwaukee.
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