Milwaukee Brewers reinstate Corbin Burnes, Omar Narvaez, and Josh Lindblom from the Injured List

The Milwaukee Brewers are well on their way to being back at full strength.

Prior to this afternoon’s series finale against the St. Louis Cardinals, the Brew Crew announced a series of roster moves welcoming back some important contributors who had been on the shelf. Omar Narvaez has returned from his hamstring injury after about two weeks of missed action, and Josh Lindblom is back from his right knee effusion. Corbin Burnes has returned, too, and will start today’s tilt versus St. Louis. Burnes refused the COVID-19 vaccine despite the fact that 85%+ of his teammates have now received it, then contracted the coronavirus and was placed on the Injured List for two weeks while going through the league protocols.

Burnes is looking to continue his historic run of starts, as he still has yet to walk a batter while striking out 49 opposing hitters across five outings and 29.1 innings pitched so far this season. He owns a 1.53 ERA. Narvaez was the team’s top hitter when he went on the shelf and the Brewers — who rank 12th in the NL with 3.76 runs per game — are surely hoping that he can pick up right where he left off, hitting .368/.443/.529 (167 OPS+) with three home runs through his first 79 plate appearances. Lindblom is likely to return to his role as long-man in the bullpen; he’s allowed 13 earned runs so far in 10.2 innings, but eight of those came in one disastrous outing against the Cubs on April 23rd. Lindblom threw 4.1 scoreless innings while on rehab assignment in Triple-A Nashville.

To make room on the roster for these returns, Patrick Weigel and Luke Maile were optioned back to Triple-A, while Jacob Nottingham was once against designated for assignment:

Weigel has appeared in three big league games this year, allowing two runs in 4.0 innings but with nine strikeouts among the 21 batters he’s faced. Maile hit .211/318/.263 with one RBI across eight games and 22 plate appearances while filling in at catcher. Nottingham’s whirlwind few weeks continues as he now hits the waiver wire for the third time in less than a month; after being reacquired by the Brewers from Seattle, he hit two home runs in his first game back but wound up with a .214/.214/.714 slash line in five games and 14 plate appearances, with eight strikeouts.

Also announced was Zack Godley being outrighted to Nashville, which presumably means that he accepted his minor league assignment after clearing waivers and will stay with the organization despite having had the option to enter free agency. The seven-year MLB veteran made one start for the Brewers and allowed four runs in 3.0 innings before exiting with an elbow injury. He was activated and immediately DFA’d 10 days ago.

Joining Godley, Weigel, and Maile in Nashville will be a couple more rehabbing big leaguers, including one very notable one. Daniel Robertson has been on the concussion IL since April 27th, but he’ll now join the Sounds and try to work his way back to action. He was off to a slow start before going down, hitting .105/.190/.132 in 43 plate appearances. Christian Yelich, who has played just one game since April 11th between two IL stints, will also head to Tennessee to try and show he’s ready to return to the big league club. Yelich’s mysterious lower back injury has limited him to just 10 games and 41 plate appearances this year, during which he’s hit .353/.463/.382. The Brewers plan to reassess Yelich’s physical state after the weekend, setting up a possible return next week before the club takes on Kansas City.

Statistics courtesy of Baseball-Reference