The Brewers will use an “opener” or bullpen game strategy multiple times in one series
It’s already been announced that the Milwaukee Brewers will use Brandon Woodruff as an “opener” in game 1, so that ruined my original prediction of the Brewers using an opener strategy in one of the games in Milwaukee to open the NLDS, so we’ll go even further.
With a best-of-five series, it’s going to be more difficult to pull off two openers in one series, but this prediction is that the Brewers will be around long enough to do this in one of their series in the 2018 MLB playoffs.
The Brewers have loaded their NLDS roster in a way that sets up just three starters on the roster – Jhoulys Chacin, Gio Gonzalez, and Wade Miley. However, there are multiple guys that can be multi-inning arms that would work as an opener or handle multiple innings out of the bullpen – Corbin Burnes, Junior Guerra, Josh Hader, Freddy Pralta, and Brandon Woodruff.
With both Miley and Gonzalez being lefties, the Brewers could even choose to set up their opener games in such a way to split up the lefties, which would set up the second opener option in the NLDS if it were to happen in game 4 of the series.