Brewers rotation takes another hit as Wade Miley out six to eight weeks

Brewers left-hander Wade Miley has been diagnosed with a posterior serratus strain and will likely miss the next six to eight weeks, manager Craig Counsell tells reporters, including Todd Rosiak of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The southpaw was placed on the 15-day injured list earlier this week with what was initially described as a lat strain.

The posterior serratus muscle is on the back, roughly at the bottom of the ribcage. As relayed by Adam McCalvy of MLB.com, it’s rare for a baseball player to strain this muscle, which means the Brewers are putting some guesswork into this recovery timeline.

Regardless of the exact length of Miley’s eventual absence, it seems that it will be somewhat significant, which is unfortunate for the Brewers. They signed the lefty this winter to a one-year deal with a $4.5M guarantee and incentives. He was off to a strong start, having taken the ball eight times with a 3.67 ERA in those. He only struck out 14% of batters faced but he’s never been a huge strikeout guy. His 5.3% walk rate showed excellent control and he was in the 76th percentile of qualified pitchers in limiting hard contact.

The Brewers knew they would be proceeding without Miley for a bit but will now seemingly have to extended their plans for not having him around. The club is also without starters Brandon Woodruff, Aaron Ashby and Jason Alexander, none of whom seem particularly close to returning. That leaves them with Corbin Burnes, Freddy Peralta, Eric Lauer and Adrian Houser in four rotation spots, with one to fill. Colin Rea and Janson Junk are both on the 40-man roster and would seem to be the first choices to come up, since each has been with the big league club previously this season.