Keston Hiura returns to Brewers, Alec Bettinger optioned and Jace Peterson DFA’d

Keston Hiura will make his return to the Milwaukee Brewers tonight after officially being called up following a couple weeks away from the big league roster.

The move was rumored earlier Monday and made sense, considering the Brewers are set to face a tough lefty in Blake Snell against San Diego tonight and the team did not have a viable right-handed first base option on the roster.

Alec Bettinger was sent down to make room on the 25-man roster, while Jace Peterson was also activated from the 10-day disabled list and DFA’ed.

Hiura was given some time away from baseball before starting his stint in Nashville, which included spending time with his mother who was diagnosed with cancer just as Spring Training was getting underway.

As anyone who has had a loved one fighting cancer can attest, that can take a lot of focus and energy away from the day job. But Hiura says it was a good visit to clear his head, and it seems to have worked out for him on the baseball field as well.

He was named the Sounds’ player of the week after going 10-for-16 with 3 home runs, 2 doubles, 2 steals and 7 RBI.

In 9 games at Triple-A, Hiura still struck out in many of the outs he made, but he clearly started hitting the ball hard more consistently — something that he couldn’t seem to do in the majors to start the year with a .513 OPS.

Hiura is hitting 5th for the Brewers tonight against San Diego, as the Brewers did their best to stack the lineup with righties against Snell.