Milwaukee Brewers: What to expect from Jimmy Nelson?

Pitcher Jimmy Nelson is set to make his first start for the Milwaukee Brewers since 2017, so what should we expect in his long-awaited return?

The time is finally here, the Milwaukee Brewers announced that Jimmy Nelson would be making his first start for the team since tearing his rotator cuff and labrum all the way back in the 2017 season.

Prior to his injury, it appeared that Nelson was coming into his own and was ready to cement himself as the Milwaukee Brewers top pitcher for the foreseeable future. That season over 175.1 innings, Nelson had an ERA of 3.49, with 199 strikeouts and a WHIP of 1.249.

Nelson in 2019

After sitting out all of the 2018 season, Nelson would make a few appearances in Spring Training this year but would ultimately begin the season on the injured list. From there, Jimmy would begin making rehab starts with Triple-A San Antonio. And while he would take some lumps early on as should have been expected, he continued to improve and work his way later into games.

In 24 innings with San Antonio, Nelson would go 3-0, with a 3.75 ERA, allowing 10 earned runs, 12 walks and striking out 29.

Now Nelson will be making his long-awaited return to the Brewers this upcoming Wednesday in front of a fired up Miller Park crowd, against the Miami Marlins, and it just so happens to be his 30th birthday. If you’re Nelson, you can’t really ask for much more.

When it comes to the opponent, Nelson really can’t have a better team to be going up against, which I’m sure was apart of manager Craig Counsell’s plan. the Marlins rank last in the NL in runs, second to last in team batting average, and last in OPS.

With that said, this is still a major league team and Nelson hasn’t pitched in roughly 21 months at the big league level, so fans should have expectations tempered.

What to expect?

There are a few things to keep our eyes on early on in this outing and one is how well is Jimmy commanding his pitches, as he could be a bit sporadic just given the circumstances.

The second would be his velocity. We saw his velo return for the most part in his Spring Training and rehab outings, but I’m going to be watching how well he maintains that as the game progresses.

Lastly, before he was injured, Nelson did a very good job of throwing a four-pitch mix and using all of those pitches fairly regularly. In his return, I’ll be looking for how often he will be switching his pitches up or if he will be relying heavily on two of them to make things simpler.

Throughout this process for Nelson, the Milwaukee Brewers have taken a fairly conservative approach in making sure that they don’t rush him back and risk further injury. Given that, I am expecting them to ease Nelson into this first start, with him possibly going no more than five innings, even if he is dealing.

On the other hand, if he does struggle I expect Counsell will give him the opportunity to fight through it, but overall Nelson will have a short leash. In his first outing back, I’m anticipating the Brewers want him to take away as many positives from this game as possible. And if that means pulling Nelson if he finds himself in a difficult situation, they will do it.

Overall, this is an exciting day for the Milwaukee Brewers, but more importantly for Jimmy Nelson. The amount of hard work that he has had to put in behind the scenes to get to this point is incredible.

For the time being, we shouldn’t be expecting the Nelson of 2017, but rather hope that we see progress from him with each appearance that he makes moving forward. Regardless of the outcome on Wednesday, we should all just be happy to have Jimmy back on the mound.