The Brewers Have the Most Underrated Bullpen Duo in MLB
Milwaukee's two high-leverage relievers have been one of the league's most lethal combinations since the beginning of last year.
On Sunday, Milwaukee Brewers closer Trevor Megill entered the team’s game against the Twins in the ninth inning as he is used to doing. The situation was a high-leverage one per usual, but there was just one difference.
The Brewers and Twins were tied by a score of 3-3. Megill was making his 47th appearance on the year but just his eighth where he entered in a tie game. Plenty of closers can be uncomfortable entering a game in anything but a save situation.
Megill is apparently not one of those closers. He would end up facing just three batters, striking out two, while throwing only 13 pitches. He may not have earned a save, but he extended a game that Milwaukee ultimately won in walk-off fashion in the 10th inning.
Prior to Megill entering the game, it was his late-game bullpen mate Abner Uribe who kept the game in check. However, the Brewers’ most commonly used eighth inning pitcher by innings didn’t have nearly as smooth of an outing.
The Twins worked Abner to the brink in the eighth inning, loading the bases on two walks and a fielder’s choice. But with a 2-2 count and two outs, he induced an inning-ending ground ball to keep a long personal scoreless streak intact, as well as the tie game.
Uribe’s scoreless outing increased his current scoreless streak to 21.2 innings, in which time he has given up just 11 hits and seven walks while striking out 19. He’s only barely outdoing Megill’s current stretch.
Megill has given up just one run over his last 22.1 innings and has been even stingier in doing so. He’s allowed just nine hits and four walks over that span and has struck out 24. Both earned the praise of their manager last weekend.
“[Megill]’s been awfully good,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy stated. “Uribe, awfully good.”
Murphy, the aforementioned bullpen duo’s teammates, and Brewers fans certainly appreciate how dominant the pair can be. But does everyone else?
The Brewers Have the Most Underrated Bullpen Duo in MLB
Milwaukee’s two-headed bullpen monster has anchored the back end of the bullpen dating back to the beginning of last season. The paths they took to get here, however, are quite different.
Uribe was signed by the Brewers as an international free agent in summer of 2018. He had control issues that needed to be sorted out; he had more walks (17) than strikeouts (16) in a nine-inning Arizona Fall League stint in 2021. The talent, though, was clearly evident.
Uribe would make his debut in 2023, pitching to an impressive 1.76 ERA over 30.2 innings. He’d pitch just 14.1 innings the following season dude to an injury and suspension before truly breaking out last year, compiling a 1.67 ERA, .194 opponent batting average, and 30.2% strikeout rate over 75.1 innings.
Megill, on the other hand, bounced around a bit before finding his current home. Originally drafted by the Padres in the seventh round back in 2015, he was claimed off waivers in 2019 by the Cubs, with whom he made his MLB debut in 2021, signed as a free agent by the Twins the next offseason, and then traded to Milwaukee in 2023.
The 32-year-old has largely been lights out since being called up by the Brewers that same year. He has a 2.80 ERA in 173.1 innings with the Crew and began being entrusted with ninth inning duties when former closer Devin Williams was injured for most of 2024.
That’s not to say there haven’t been bumps in the road for him as well. Megill was temporarily removed from the closer’s role early this season when he gave up eight runs in his first five innings of the year. He was only out for about a month, though, before being back in his normal role and has dropped his ERA all the way down to 2.58.
“I think that’s what you have to understand in the world of baseball is everybody’s going to go through bumps. Everybody,” Murphy had stated after Saturday’s game against the Twins. “It’s how you respond to it and how quickly you respond to it.”
Murphy was specifically referring to Megill in that statement, but the same could certainly apply to Uribe and his 2024 season. Indeed, both have since responded and now combine for one of the most formidable bullpen duos in the league.
Through 48.1 innings, Uribe has a 2.05 ERA to go along with Megill’s 2.58 over 45.1 innings. That’s enough to make them a fearsome sight on the mound regardless of inning.
In the eighth and ninth inning specifically, though, when the stakes are highest, the two have a 1.63 and 3.13 ERA, respectively. Only two other pairs of teammates across the league with at least 30 innings pitched apiece in the eighth and/or ninth innings have that low of ERAs between them (Aroldis Chapman and Garrett Whitlock of Boston, Louis Varland and Tyler Rogers of Toronto).
Uribe has been an expert at limiting hard contact this year. His miniscule 1.6% barrel rate allowed is second lowest among qualified relievers, per FanGraphs, while his 31.5% hard-hit rate allowed is in the 90th percentile in MLB, per Baseball Savant.
And he’s been one of the most dominant relievers in all of baseball over the last two seasons. Uribe’s 1.82 ERA since the beginning of 2025 is third lowest among all qualified relievers behind only Chapman and Randy Rodriguez.
“I mean, this is what we saw last year,” Megill said of Uribe after Saturday’s win. “He’s got the talent and the mindset for it and I’m glad he’s doing it again. It’s definitely helping us win a lot of baseball games right now.”
Megill, on the other hand, is all about getting hitters to chase, whiff, and strike out. His 36.3% chase rate is 11th best among non-starters with at least 40 innings pitched. Accordingly, his 31.7% whiff rate and 29.9% strikeout rate are each 89th percentile or better.
The Brewers’ closer matches up with the best of the best at his craft as well. His 51 saves since the beginning of 2025 are sixth most in MLB. That’s more than Cade Smith, Robert Suarez, Tanner Scott, and Jeff Hoffman, all of whom have thrown more innings over that span.
And when Uribe and Megill both come into a game, you might as well say your prayers. The Brewers are 30-5 this season when both members of the duo pitch in the same game. The last time the team lost in such a scenario was way back on June 28.
Underrated or not, Uribe and Megill, like most players, would probably tell you that winning is what truly matters. As long as this dynamic duo is at the back of the Brewers’ bullpen, winning should continue to happen quite a bit.
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Written by
Matt Carroll is a writer for Just Baseball and former site expert at Reviewing the Brew. He studied journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and currently…