Fresh off a Triple-A recall, the right-hander rescued a depleted bullpen by retiring eight straight Arizona Diamondbacks, providing a crucial silver lining amid mounting injury concerns for the Milwaukee Brewers.
After being demoted to Triple-A Nashville a week ago, there was real cause for concern regarding right-handed pitcher Craig Yoho.
Brandon Woodruff suffered another potentially serious injury in game two of the Arizona Diamondbacks series, and Yoho had just returned to the big leagues earlier in the day.
Prior to the Milwaukee Brewers game on Saturday, July 4, the team announced Yoho was recalled from Triple-A while righty Joel Kuhnel was placed on the 15-day injured list with a right shoulder injury, retroactive to Friday, July 3.
It's been discussed at nauseum how many more games these Brewers have to play before getting a day off, so Yoho's contributions were crucial even though the team failed to erase an early deficit on Independence Day.
Yoho Throws 2.2 Scoreless Innings in His Return
All eyes were on Woodruff's arm feeling dead, and rightfully so, but Yoho pulled his weight in a big way. Had the 26-year-old not been able to get out of an inning, it would've put manager Pat Murphy and pitching coach Chris Hook in an impossible situation with the state of this bullpen.
The Brewers need pitchers to eat innings, and Yoho did a tremendous job of doing that last night. In total, he threw 27 pitches, 19 of which were for strikes. He threw first-pitch strikes to seven of the eight batters he faced which is an incredible number for someone who had spent the last week in the minors.
Not only did Yoho throw 2.2 scoreless innings, but he didn't allow a single baserunner in his first big-league appearance since Wednesday, June 24. Remember, this was only Yoho's sixth major league relief appearance of 2026, and prior to this season he had only pitched in eight games for the Brewers.
Breaking Down Yoho's Return
Of the three pitchers Milwaukee used in this game, Yoho was the only one who didn't surrender a run. Woodruff immediately gave up three in the first inning thanks to a massive home run, and then Jared Koenig gave up one in the eighth that ended up being the reason this game didn't go into extras.
In total, four of Yoho's eight outs came from fly balls. He struck out just one batter, but forced three others to ground out.
Yoho made things extremely easy on this Brewers defense, and he left Hook with an early decision to keep him in for that long due to how well he was pitching at Chase Field. Ultimately, this marked his longest appearance with the Brewers in his 14 games played.
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