Pitching in his first game since Sept. 23, 2023, Brandon Woodruff allowed one run and two hits over six innings to lead the Milwaukee Brewers to a 3-1 win over the Miami Marlins on Sunday. He notched eight strikeouts.
Woodruff, 32, missed four months of the 2023 season due to a subscapular strain in his right shoulder. He returned to make nine starts in August and September but was shut down before the postseason after reinjuring his shoulder. Following the season, he underwent surgery to repair the anterior capsule, which was expected to sideline him for all of 2024.
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The right-hander’s return was delayed further when he developed tendinitis in his right ankle during a minor-league rehab assignment out of spring training. After recovering and resetting his timetable, he suffered another setback when he was hit in the right elbow by a line drive.
Once that bruise cleared up, Woodruff made one last rehab start for Triple-A Nashville last weekend before he was scheduled to make his first major-league appearance in 652 days. Coincidentally, the Marlins were the team he faced in his last MLB start of 2023.
Woodruff threw his first pitch — a 91.1 mph fastball — for a strike, low and in the middle of the zone. Four pitches later, he struck out Xavier Edwards, getting him to swing and miss at a 92.1 mph fastball high and out of the strike zone.
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The seven-year MLB veteran didn’t allow a hit or a walk, getting three strikeouts through his first two innings. Miami finally broke through when Heriberto Hernández led off the third with a single. Hernández also recorded the other hit Woodruff allowed, a solo home run in the fifth.
Woodruff finished with 70 pitches thrown, 53 for strikes. He touched 96 mph on the radar gun on a third-inning strikeout of Dane Myers. Woodruff was credited with the win in his first appearance in nearly two years. If not for Hernández, he might have pitched a perfect six innings.
“Nobody could have predicted six innings of two-hit ball,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy said after the game, via MLB.com’s Adam McCalvy.
“He was sensational,” Murphy continued. “Any worries anybody had about this guy being able to pitch in his future or whatever — wow. It just tells you a lot about who this guy is.”
Woodruff improves his career record to 47-26 with a 3.08 ERA in 131 appearances (116 starts). He has averaged 10.44 strikeouts per nine innings during his seven MLB seasons.
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Jackson Chourio‘s two-run homer in the third inning gave Milwaukee an early 2-0 lead, and his 15th homer of the season turned out to be the difference in the game. He drove in all three runs in the Brewers’ win, adding an RBI single in the eighth.
With the victory, Milwaukee improves to 50-40, 3.5 games out of first place in the NL Central ahead of the Chicago Cubs‘ matchup with the St. Louis Cardinals on Sunday. The Brewers host the Los Angeles Dodgers for a three-game series beginning Monday.
