It will soon be the second week of September, and thanks to Daniel Vogelbach and his pinch-hitting prowess, the Brewers have their largest division lead in franchise history.
After winning two out of three games over the weekend against the Cardinals and three out of four versus the Giants before that, the Brewers (84-54) now have an 11-game lead over the second-place Reds in the National League Central division.
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This week’s column focuses on Vogelbach, why the Brewers always wanted him as a pinch hitter, what it takes to succeed in the role and what a special weekend means for the playoff roster.
1. Vogelbach’s pinch-hit, walk-off grand slam Sunday at American Family Field was an incredible moment more than six months in the making.
Back in late March and to the surprise of some, Vogelbach secured a spot on the Brewers’ opening-day roster as a pinch hitter. Mere days into the season and before he was ever really at a point to execute the role, though, it was clear his job would need to be changed. Keston Hiura wasn’t hitting, and the Brewers needed production from first base, so they turned to Vogelbach. Initially, Vogelbach played in a platoon situation. By June, he became the everyday option at first base — until a severe hamstring injury sidelined him. A trade for Rowdy Tellez, a fellow left-handed-batting first baseman, followed, creating uncertainty yet again regarding Vogelbach’s future in Milwaukee.
While some surmised in March that Vogelbach could offer minimal help on a roster built on depth and versatility by a forward-thinking front office, members of the Brewers brain trust consistently expressed confidence that the 28-year-old would come in handy. They always liked Vogelbach. They viewed him as a dangerous left-handed bat off the bench — a luxury they believed they could afford to carry with a 26-man roster. They valued his patience and power at the plate along with his popularity in the clubhouse. So it was unsurprising a couple of weeks ago that Brewers president of baseball operations David Stearns said he saw how his roster could include Tellez and Vogelbach, starting in September when rosters expanded two spots to 28 players. If anything, Vogelbach could perform the role Stearns always envisioned for him.
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So, finally, on Sunday, that’s just what happened.
With a 1-0 count, Vogelbach, who rejoined the Brewers on Sept. 1 after missing more than two months, crushed a 97 mph fastball that got too much of the plate, sending it 397 feet for a grand slam to right to win the game for the Brewers. He admired his shot for a few seconds, taking slow steps toward first base before breaking into a jog while pointing to the home dugout. The entire team mobbed him at home plate. In a rare scene, they all then waited for his on-field interview to finish to celebrate with him some more.
The Brewers now have eight walk-off grand slams in team history. It was only fitting that Sunday was Ryan Braun bobblehead day. Before Vogebach, Braun was the last to do it, pulling off the feat against the Pirates on Sept. 25, 2008.
“I enjoy being in those situations, whether I fail or whether I succeed,” Vogelbach said. “As a competitor, you always want to be in those situations and be the guy that steps up to the plate in that situation.”
2. Perhaps Stearns and the Brewers didn’t plan on a scene quite like that one. But they always expressed a belief that there would be days when Vogelbach would come through in an important pinch-hit situation and deliver a big hit to win a game.
“Vogey has come back and he’s got kind of a different job,” Brewers manager Craig Counsell said. “In one sense, it’s a shame because he got hurt. We made an acquisition to cover for it, and he’s done a nice job. So, for now, this is his job, being a bat off the bench. To deliver in that way — and you don’t get a big sample of opportunities — is a real credit to him. It really is. It’s ‘I want to do this job and help this team.’ He’s decided to do that. His attitude with this is part of the reason you’re able to do something like that.”
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What once was old is new again.
3. In March, when Stearns introduced the idea of having Vogelbach on the roster as mostly a pinch hitter, he compared it to how teams use pitchers nowadays in matchup situations.
“The way I look at Vogey is, he’s a specialist,” Stearns said in spring training. “Specialists haven’t been in vogue in baseball for a while, but it’s something that most rosters used to have. You used to have a lefty specialist. The three-batter minimum kind of took that away from us a little bit. It’s a little unconventional. But as an industry, we’ve carried specialists before. We’re now just gonna carry specialists on the offensive side of the ball rather than from the pitching framework.”
Funny, that’s exactly how Matt Stairs, who last played in a major-league game in 2011 and holds the record for most pinch-hit home runs (23), described the roster decision. Stairs is from a bygone era, like fellow pinch-hit greats such as Lenny Harris. But that doesn’t mean the job should be extinct.
“Hats off to Milwaukee for being smart that way of having a pinch hitter that can change the outcome of the game; it’s very important — especially nowadays,” Stairs told The Athletic. “I mean, everyone’s taking guys out after two at-bats because they are facing a right-hander or a left-hander, whatever the batter is. So again, hats off to Milwaukee for stepping up and saying, you know what, let’s stack the back end of our game with our closer because I guess you can call pinch hitters closers, too.”
4. Stairs attributed his success as a pinch hitter to a simple mindset, which includes a surprising thought.
“I never expected to get a hit,” Stairs said over the phone before waiting a moment to continue his thought. “I expected to have a quality at-bat. And then the outcome was out of my hands. So, if I went up there pressing like, ‘I have to get a hit here’ or ‘I have to try hit a home run,’ that’s when I found that the strike zone would open up more and more and more, and you started swinging at the pitcher’s pitch instead of your own pitch.”
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Stairs’ approach also included eyeing an area of the strike zone where he could do the most damage. He’d focus middle-inside, and he looked for mistakes until there were two strikes. The most important attributes for a pinch hitter, he said, were stubbornness, patience, confidence and trust that there would be a pitch to hit.
That method is very similar to Vogelbach’s description in spring training of how he would handle the job. Vogelbach consulted with former players who performed the role. He said his plan included doing extra work on scouting reports and maintaining the same approach, whether he was batting in the first inning or the ninth inning.
“That’s kind of how I feel about hitting in general — have a plan and stick to your plan,” Vogelbach said. “And if they beat you, I’d rather them beat me with me going up there having a plan and they just beat me.”
5. At the plate, Vogelbach is consistently selective and knows the strike zone better than most. Usually, he doesn’t deviate. He continually refuses to swing at pitches that are barely out of the strike zone. At his best, Vogelbach, who hit 30 home runs for the Mariners in 2019, hits hard line drives to all fields with some pop and carries a high walk rate because of his discipline. In other words, he has the capacity to be an ideal pinch hitter.
“He’s more than a hitter than just a power guy,” Counsell said in April. “He’s more of a good at-bat (batting) average player to me than a power hitter. I think when everything is synced up, he’s going to hit for some power but he’s more of a put-the-ball-in-play hitter, and you see that by the way he sprays the ball all over the field. Those are traits that line up good for doing that job. It’s a job that’s kind of been minimized over the years. It’s a little bit of a different job, but we thought Daniel can kind of play a daily role with it.”
6. Vogelbach, from Counsell’s perspective, also has the mental toughness and aptitude to handle the ups and downs of the job. Counsell would know. With the Brewers and in his final year as a player in 2011, Counsell once went 0-for-45 during a stretch of 40 games that included just eight starts.
“Pinch hitting is difficult,” Counsell said earlier this year. “You get one shot at it a night, and it’s a challenging job because often your results are not positive. And then you have to fight the urge to change things, go hit the cage for two hours to try to get results, so it’s mentally a challenging job. More than us having to have patience there, it’s having conversations with the player about just having confidence in who you are as a hitter, what your plan is, knowing that you have to measure how your results are over much bigger timeframes than a normal player does.”
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When Vogelbach returned on Sept. 1, he entered the game in the fifth inning and struck out in his only plate appearance. Even though he had a lengthy rehab assignment with Triple-A Nashville, it was his first major-league plate appearance since June 22. The next day, Vogelbach played the entire game and went 1-for-3. On Friday, he appeared in the final inning of a lopsided loss and went 0-for-1 after grounding into a double play. He didn’t play Saturday.
Then on Sunday, he delivered in the biggest possible way.
7. Shortly after the dramatic win, star Christian Yelich tweeted, “This team is special.” He included the hashtag “VOGEY” and a photo of Vogelbach in a wild outfit for the Fourth of July. While it may not be solely because of Vogelbach’s antics, it appears Yelich is right about his Brewers.
How else to explain it?
On Sunday, Yelich was out of the starting lineup for a rest day. Shortstop Willy Adames went on the 10-day injured list because of a strained left quad. The Brewers recalled infielder Tim Lopes to take Adames’ spot, and it’s unclear when one of the Brewers’ best leaders will return to action. Counsell said the hope is it will be just 10 days, but that’s far from a guarantee, and the Brewers need Adames at close to full strength in October — not mid-September. Second baseman Kolten Wong is on the paternity list, and it’s not clear when he will return, either. (Counsell said they could place him on other emergency lists, if necessary.) And outfielder Avisaíl García was out of the starting lineup for the third consecutive game with back and leg stiffness.
The lineup wasn’t the most attractive one for the Brewers. Yet they still won. That’s been the story of their season. Regardless of who is out or who is slumping, the Brewers have racked up wins.
8. A lot of times, it’s been someone new or unlikely stepping up as a hero. On Sunday, it was Vogelbach. On Saturday, it was Adrian Houser.
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Houser limited the Cardinals to just three hits and tossed a nine-inning shutout. It was the first time a Brewers pitcher did that since Kyle Lohse threw nine scoreless innings on Sept. 24, 2014. The only pitcher who had gone a full nine innings for the Brewers since then was Jimmy Nelson in a 2-1 win against the Padres on June 18, 2017.
Heading into Sunday’s games, just 24 pitchers had at least 120 innings and a sub 3.50 ERA. The Brewers had four of them: Corbin Burnes, Brandon Woodruff, Freddy Peralta and Houser. Also, each has one pitch in the top 25 for run value. On that list, Houser’s sinker is eighth.
It’s outings like Saturday’s that continue to make decisions regarding the Brewers’ playoff roster and plans difficult for enviable reasons. A week ago, if the Brewers needed a fourth starter for the playoffs, a sound argument could be made for some kind of tandem situation involving Eric Lauer, Brett Anderson and Aaron Ashby. Perhaps that still may be the best option. But Houser has continued to prove he is also very worthy of such a job. Regardless of role and plans, they should all be heavily in the mix for the first series’ 26-man roster, depending on rest and need.
Decisions, decisions.
9. Maybe it’s not just the pitching staff that includes interesting choices. What about Vogelbach in the playoffs? On Sunday, he proved he can be the pinch hitter in a big moment that the Brewers always believed he would be. Such a player can be helpful in October.
And remember how they viewed him not so long ago.
“The reason we went into the winter including Daniel and wanting him to come back is because we thought he could do this job very well,” Counsell said earlier this year. “It is a hard job, but I think his skill set as a hitter line up really good for this job.”
(Photo: John Fisher / Getty Images)
