The Milwaukee Brewers have added some depth to their pitching rotation by adding right-hander Jordan Lyles from the Pittsburgh Pirates for minor league relieving pitcher Cody Ponce.
RHP Jordan Lyles has been acquired from Pittsburgh in exchange for RHP Cody Ponce. pic.twitter.com/wG7EMy9MuF
— Milwaukee Brewers (@Brewers) July 29, 2019
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The 28-year-old started the year off great with an ERA of 1.97 and a 3.36 FIP over his first eight starts of the season, while also striking out 26.4 percent of the batters he faced.
Since then he has been the total opposite, in 9 starts he has an ERA of 9.57 and a 6.61 FIP over only 36 2/3 innings.
The Pirates landed Ponce in return who is 25 years old and has had a solid year in Double-A with an ERA of 3.29 over 38 1/3 innings.
Milwaukee will be hoping that Lyles can get back to the level he was at during his first eight starts of the season as they are only 56-51 sitting third in the NL Central through 107 games.
Their record might not sound bad but when a team has a player the caliber of Christian Yelich who has 36 homers in only 97 games, already matching the homer total of his MVP season in 50 fewer games and 209 fewer at-bats they are expected to be doing a lot better than this.
The addition of Lyles might not be game-changing on paper, but it’s a start and it wouldn’t be surprising if the Brewers made some more moves with their end goal obviously wanting to be World Series Champions. It’s a smaller move just like the Jake Diekman trade between the Oakland Athletics and Kansas City Royals.
