Tonight's Matchup: Brewers (Stinson) vs Padres (Werner)

Another win tonight would give the Brewers 84 on the season. That would make it one of the top 25% of seasons in franchise history, which is kind of a sad fact.

The Brewers will send Josh Stinson (0.00 ERA, 3.66 FIP) to the mound tonight to pitch the first few innings of what will likely be a bullpen-heavy game. Stinson is 24 and has made five appearances for the Brewers this September after pitching 145.1 innings for AA Huntsville. He faced two batters and retired them both in relief on Sunday in his last outing. He hasn't thrown more than 34 pitches in a game since the minor league season ended.

Stinson's success, both in the minors and majors this season, is at best unlikely. He's managed to avoid giving up runs for the most part despite walking roughly four and a half batters per nine innings and striking out about five and a half. Those numbers are both right in line with his career numbers in the minors. He throws a low-to-mid 90's fastball but relies heavily on his slider. He has yet to pitch in a Brewer win.

None of Stinson's 19 major league appearances have come against the Padres, and no current Padres have faced him in the majors. Since he spent all of this season in AA and last year in the Mets organization, it's unlikely they faced him in the minors either.

He'll face 25 year old lefty Andrew Werner (4.78 ERA, 4.19 FIP), making his eighth start in his major league debut season. This is the fourth professional season for the former undrafted free agent and independent leaguer, and so far he's experienced success at every level. He got knocked around a bit by the Giants on Friday and allowed three runs on eight hits and a walk over 4.2 innings.

Werner has pitched a career-high 164 innings this season and it's possible the workload is catching up to him. He's allowed 13 runs on 21 hits over his last 13.1 innings, allowing opposing batters to hit .368/.406/.632 over that time. He hasn't pitched more than five innings in any of his last three starts. He'll throw a high-80's fastball with a lot of changeups and the occasional slider and curve.

Werner has never faced the Brewers in the majors, and has not faced any current Brewers in the minors over the last two seasons.

Here's tonight's lineup:

Norichika Aoki RF
Rickie Weeks 2B
Ryan Braun LF
Aramis Ramirez 3B
Jonathan Lucroy C
Carlos Gomez CF
Travis Ishikawa 1B
Jean Segura SS
Josh Stinson P

And in the bullpen:

John Axford pitched one inning (23 pitches) last night and also pitched on Monday.
Jim Henderson pitched one inning (13 pitches) last night and also pitched on Monday.
Francisco Rodriguez pitched one inning (10 pitches) last night and also pitched on Monday.
Brandon Kintzler pitched 1.1 innings (19 pitches) last night.
Manny Parra faced four batters (13 pitches) last night.
Kameron Loe pitched .2 innings (9 pitches) last night.
Livan Hernandez and Jose Veras last pitched on Saturday and were both unavailable last night.