Consecutive bullpen games can expose the physical limits of a pitching staff, but Aaron Ashby looked determined to make those limits somebody else’s problem. On October 15, 2026, Dodger Stadium buzzed with the possibility of a comeback. The Los Angeles Dodgers had Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman. Milwaukee had a 5-4 lead, nine outs to find and a left-hander whose workload was already piling up.
Ashby stepped onto the mound in the seventh inning. His sinker still crackled near 99 mph, even after an October stretch that had already demanded more than nine innings from his arm. The Dodgers kept threatening, but Ashby continued finding ways to escape.
By the ninth, Milwaukee stood three outs from its first World Series appearance since 1982. Ashby needed 39 pitches to complete his three-inning save, and Jackson Chourio caught Enrique Hernández’s final line drive to finish the sweep.
The celebration answered one question. Milwaukee’s bullpen could survive October’s pressure, at least for another night.
But what happens when a team keeps asking those same arms to throw at maximum intensity? How much velocity can pitchers preserve before fatigue changes the way they deliver it?
Milwaukee’s bullpen absorbed the punishment so its season could survive
The deciding game began badly enough to make Milwaukee’s pitching plan look vulnerable.
Shane Drohan lasted one inning before Dustin May inherited a runner in the second. Ohtani crushed a three-run homer, and Los Angeles surged ahead 4-0. The crowd had reason to believe the Dodgers might finally interrupt Milwaukee’s postseason momentum.
May could have let the inning unravel further. Instead, he steadied himself and carried the Brewers through the fourth. His final line showed three innings, 44 pitches and three earned runs. Those numbers hardly suggested domination, but he gave Milwaukee’s offense time to respond.
Jake Bauers delivered a two-run double, then drew a bases-loaded walk to tie the game. Garrett Mitchell followed with a go-ahead homer in the sixth, giving the Brewers a narrow lead worth protecting.
JoJo Romero took over in the fifth and worked two scoreless innings on 24 pitches. His sweeping slider became a centerpiece of the attack, accounting for 14 of those offerings. Against Ohtani, Betts and Freeman, Romero leaned on sharp movement rather than simply challenging hitters with fastballs.
Ashby followed with three more scoreless innings.
Milwaukee’s relievers had covered eight innings, thrown 107 pitches and completed a comeback against the defending champions. Romero and Ashby handled the final five frames without issuing a walk, giving manager Pat Murphy exactly the kind of relief performance that can carry a team through October.
That was the beauty of Milwaukee’s approach. The Brewers could ask different arms to handle different challenges, even when a conventional starter failed to provide length. Each reliever offered something the previous pitcher hadn’t shown.
Still, every appearance came with a physical bill. Those innings might have secured the pennant, but they also added another demanding night to an already crowded postseason workload.
The radar gun revealed something surprising about Ashby
The physical toll of consecutive bullpen games should leave clues in the tracking data. Ashby’s Game 4 performance produced a surprising answer.
His sinker did not suffer a meaningful velocity decline.
Statcast’s pitch-by-pitch data showed that Ashby averaged 98.8 mph in the seventh inning, throwing seven sinkers. His eight sinkers in the eighth averaged 99.1 mph, while five more in the ninth registered 98.7 mph.
Across all 20 sinkers, Ashby averaged 98.9 mph. His regular-season average on the same pitch was approximately 97.7 mph, meaning he threw considerably harder than his usual baseline throughout the appearance.
Even after completing 25 pitches through two innings, he maintained nearly the same velocity in the ninth. The four-tenths difference between his eighth- and ninth-inning averages offers no reliable evidence of fatigue on its own.
Those numbers change the story. Ashby wasn’t desperately trying to recover lost velocity. He was throwing harder than his regular-season average while handling an unusually demanding postseason assignment.
His pitch selection offered another clue about how he survived.
During the regular season, curveballs represented approximately 22 percent of his repertoire. In Game 4, Ashby threw 13 curves among his 39 pitches, pushing that share above 33 percent.
Rather than relying exclusively on his sinker, he repeatedly changed speeds and trajectories. The Dodgers had to prepare for a fastball approaching 100 mph while protecting against a breaking ball that could dive below their bats.
The dangerous contact hiding beneath the scoreless innings
Velocity wasn’t the only measurement worth examining.
The Dodgers made hard contact against Ashby even though they failed to score. In the ninth, Tommy Edman hit a ground ball measured at 110.6 mph. Enrique Hernández then lined the final out at 107.9 mph.
Both became outs, preserving Ashby’s scoreless appearance.
Of the eight balls that Statcast tracked in play against him, five registered exit velocities of at least 95 mph. Those readings didn’t undermine his save, but they showed how narrow the margin remained despite his excellent velocity.
Ashby combined overpowering pitches with timely strikeouts and defensive support. A few inches of different placement could have extended the inning or changed the outcome entirely.
For all the attention on consecutive bullpen games and pitching velocity, the radar gun cannot explain everything happening between the mound and home plate. A pitcher can preserve his fastball speed and still leave dangerous pitches where hitters can reach them.
Ashby’s workload started long before that final save
Ashby hadn’t spent October waiting around for one dramatic appearance.
On October 3, he worked 1 2/3 innings against San Diego. He returned the following day for another inning, then delivered three scoreless frames in the decisive NLDS Game 4.
Milwaukee needed him again when the Dodgers series began. Ashby pitched two innings on October 11 and another 1 2/3 on October 12. His next assignment came three days later, when Murphy handed him the final nine outs of the pennant-clinching game.
By the end of October 15, Ashby had thrown 12 1/3 scoreless postseason innings across six appearances. Three of those outings required multiple innings, including two separate three-inning assignments.
That workload matters because the official pitch count tells only part of the story.
A reliever may warm up before entering, sit down when another pitcher settles into an inning, then begin throwing again when the situation changes. Those pitches never appear in the box score. Neither do the repeated preparations that can accompany a long postseason series.
For pitchers working consecutive bullpen games, the actual demands can extend beyond recorded game pitches. The physical cost depends partly on how often they prepare, how intensely they throw and how their bodies recover.
Milwaukee didn’t run a full bullpen game every night, and Ashby didn’t pitch four consecutive days. The concern was more precise: relief-heavy playoff plans repeatedly place pitchers in high-intensity situations while narrowing their recovery opportunities.
That distinction becomes particularly important when October schedules force teams to play on consecutive nights. A manager may need an effective reliever again before he has fully recovered from the previous outing.
Fatigue can change a delivery before it changes velocity
Ashby’s sinker told one story. His workload raised another.
After six postseason appearances, he was still firing fastballs near 99 mph. Nothing in his Game 4 velocity readings suggested a pitcher running out of strength. Yet throwing hard and throwing without fatigue aren’t necessarily the same thing.
A pitcher can keep reaching his usual velocity while his body works harder to produce it. His legs might tire, his timing could slip, or his arm may have to compensate for a delivery that no longer feels quite as smooth.
Researchers have been studying that problem for years. In 2019, a group of sports scientists reviewed 25 studies examining what happens to pitchers as fatigue builds. They found that throwing mechanics can change even before performance visibly declines.
Some pitchers altered their shoulder rotation. Others showed differences in knee position or the timing between their hips and shoulders. Those adjustments could help maintain velocity, but they might also shift stress onto different muscles and joints.
Picture a reliever trying to reach 98 mph late in his third appearance of the week. His legs aren’t driving quite as forcefully, and his torso starts rotating a fraction earlier. His arm compensates, and the ball still reaches the catcher at 98.
From the stands, nothing looks wrong. Inside the delivery, however, the pitcher may be working harder to produce the same result.
That doesn’t establish that Ashby experienced those changes. His Game 4 tracking data cannot diagnose fatigue, and no verified evidence from the outing shows that he suffered a mechanical breakdown.
What the research does show is why managers cannot judge recovery by velocity alone. A pitcher might still throw his hardest fastball while losing some of the repeatability that makes it effective.
Pat Murphy recognized that throwing hard wasn’t enough
Before Game 4, Murphy faced a question about Abner Uribe and whether the reliever would benefit from rest.
The Brewers manager offered an answer that captured baseball’s complicated relationship with fatigue.
“His stuff is as hard as it’s been,” Murphy said, while acknowledging that Uribe hadn’t been sharp.
The distinction was striking. Murphy wasn’t discussing a pitcher who had suddenly lost his fastball. He was describing a valuable arm whose execution wasn’t matching his physical ability.
During the same pregame news conference, Murphy discussed the broader team’s exhaustion.
“They’re tired. They’re run down. And they’re beat up,” he said, describing players who continued responding despite the demands of the season.
Those comments weren’t a diagnosis of bullpen fatigue. They offered something the box score couldn’t: a manager’s recognition of the physical strain his team carried.
A pitcher can keep throwing hard while struggling with command. He can preserve the radar reading even when his delivery begins feeling less repeatable. For managers, recognizing that difference before it costs a game can be more valuable than another mile per hour.
Every bullpen game forces a manager to spend tomorrow’s options
The physical toll of consecutive bullpen games extends beyond the pitchers who take the mound. It changes the decisions available to everyone managing the staff.
Consider what Murphy accomplished in Game 4. By using May for three innings, Romero for two and Ashby for three, Milwaukee avoided relying on a parade of one-inning specialists.
That arrangement preserved other bullpen arms, but it also required two trusted relievers to handle five demanding innings at the end of the game.
If the Dodgers had won, Milwaukee would have faced another challenge the following night: deciding which of those relievers could reasonably return for Game 5.
Murphy might have trusted a pitcher with diminished command or turned to somebody with less postseason experience. Neither option would have guaranteed success, especially against a lineup built around Ohtani, Betts and Freeman.
That is October’s uncomfortable bargain. A manager can protect tomorrow’s bullpen, but tomorrow means nothing if his team loses tonight.
Why modern relief pitching makes the choice harder
Major League Baseball’s December 2024 report on pitcher injuries examined the sport’s growing emphasis on throwing harder, developing sharper breaking pitches and delivering maximum effort.
More than 200 baseball professionals and medical experts contributed their perspectives. The report identified broad concern about the physical demands associated with those trends, while acknowledging that further research was necessary to establish specific causes and evaluate potential solutions.
For a modern reliever, holding something back rarely feels like a competitive option.
A hitter such as Ohtani can punish a mistake instantly. Ashby witnessed that threat earlier in Game 4 when Ohtani launched May’s cutter into the right-center-field seats.
Nobody wants to face that lineup with reduced conviction. The same competitive pressure creates the dilemma, because pitchers train to deliver their best stuff while repeated maximum-effort outings may increase recovery demands.
Consecutive bullpen games magnify that problem when a team’s trusted arms keep absorbing the most important innings. Milwaukee escaped the immediate danger because its bullpen had enough depth to spread the workload.
Other teams may not have that luxury. A club with fewer dependable multi-inning relievers might push the same specialists into consecutive appearances, leaving its manager with fewer alternatives if command begins to slip.
The next test begins when the World Series opens
The physical toll of consecutive bullpen games will matter again when Milwaukee hosts the Tampa Bay Rays in Game 1 of the World Series on October 23.
The Brewers have enjoyed a valuable break since eliminating Los Angeles. That time gives their pitchers opportunities for recovery, lighter throwing sessions and individual preparation before another demanding series.
For Ashby, the assignment becomes especially interesting.
His postseason numbers are exceptional. Twelve and one-third scoreless innings, 11 strikeouts and two saves tell the story of a pitcher whose value extends far beyond the traditional closer’s role.
Yet Milwaukee must decide how often it can ask him to handle multiple innings against a fresh opponent.
The World Series schedule includes games on October 23 and 24 before the teams travel to Tampa Bay. A close opener could create immediate consequences for the following night, forcing Murphy to balance Ashby’s effectiveness against the demands of another potentially long series.
That calculation goes beyond pitch counts.
A 35-pitch appearance might require greater recovery than a brief inning. Repeated warmups could add strain that never appears in public statistics, while changes in command or pitch movement may deserve attention even when velocity remains normal.
Teams can monitor those signals, but no measurement eliminates uncertainty. Milwaukee’s NLCS victory offered a remarkable example of what a well-managed bullpen can accomplish, not proof that repeated high-intensity appearances carry no physical cost.
Ashby didn’t fade when the pressure intensified. His sinker remained powerful, and his breaking ball helped finish off one of baseball’s most dangerous offenses.
Still, a successful outing doesn’t make the demands disappear.
When the Brewers celebrated on the Dodger Stadium mound, Ashby had delivered everything Murphy needed. The rest of the staff could finally enjoy a few days without another elimination game approaching.
Soon, that comfort will vanish.
Another tight ninth inning will arrive. A dangerous hitter will step into the box, and the bullpen phone will ring. Murphy may look toward Ashby, remembering the sinkers that kept reaching 99 in Los Angeles.
The radar gun will tell him how hard his pitcher can still throw. It won’t reveal every adjustment his body makes to produce that speed, or how much recovery he needs before doing it again.
The harder question is how many more times his arm can deliver that velocity when October refuses to give it a night off.
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FAQs
Do consecutive bullpen games reduce pitching velocity?
Not always. Repeated outings can contribute to fatigue, but pitchers sometimes maintain velocity even as their mechanics or command begin changing.
How fast did Aaron Ashby throw during the 2026 NLCS?
Ashby’s sinker averaged 98.9 mph during Game 4 against the Dodgers, according to the pitch-level figures discussed in the article.
How many pitches did Aaron Ashby throw in NLCS Game 4?
Ashby threw 39 pitches across three scoreless innings. He recorded the final nine outs as Milwaukee completed its sweep of Los Angeles.
Can a baseball pitcher experience fatigue without losing velocity?
Yes. Fatigue can affect timing, body mechanics and command while a pitcher maintains his usual fastball speed.
Why do MLB managers use consecutive bullpen games?
Managers spread innings among several pitchers to exploit favorable matchups. The downside is heavier relief workloads and potentially fewer rested arms for later games.
