Andrew McCutchen returns as Brewers reliever Trevor Kelley, who recently picked up his first career win, is sent back to minors

Almost two weeks after first being placed on the COVID injured list, Milwaukee Brewers designated hitter Andrew McCutchen was activated prior to Friday night’s game against the Washington Nationals at American Family Field.

McCutchen was cleared to rejoin the team Monday afternoon and spent the next few days going through workouts to reacclimate his body to playing condition after missing time with the virus.

“This was just a time thing and there wasn't any specific test he had to pass," Brewers manager Craig Counsell said. "Just more days running around and feeling good."

McCutchen is batting .240 with a .641 OPS and two homers in 25 games this season.

Reliever Trevor Kelley was optioned to Class AAA in a corresponding move.

Closer Josh Hader was also back with the team after missing Wednesday's game while tending to a family situation.

Milestone precedes roster move

One game, one win, one plane ticket back to Nashville for Kelley.

Kelley picked up his first career major-league win in Wednesday’s walk-off victory against the Braves but now heads back to the minors.

In a short stint, however, the right-hander showcased what the Brewers organization envisions out of him.

Kelley fashions himself as something of an old-school pitcher. No video. No analytics. Tell him when to come in the game, give him the ball and let him go to work.

So when a couple weeks into his first spring training with the Brewers this year he was informed of a significant tweak the organization thought he should make to his pitching profile with data to back it, it was normally the type of thing Kelley wouldn’t have been all that receptive to.

“In the past, other teams would be like, ‘This, this, this, you gotta do it,’ and it never clicked in a way that was genuine toward me,” Kelley said.

A sinker-baller throwing from a funky arm slot from the right side, Kelley had pitched for six professional seasons, including two stints in the major leagues, across three organizations. He had a certain way that he pitched – a clean mix of sinkers down and curveballs glove-side. For the most part, it has worked; in 300 minor-league innings he has a 2.18 earned run average.

But when the Brewers broke down the data from Kelley’s first runs through the pitching lab at their complex in Phoenix and presented their proposal for how Kelley should attack hitters, it was personalized and broken down in a way that made sense for the former 36th round draft pick.

Milwaukee explained to him why the numbers indicated he should rely heavily on his sinker and try throwing it at the top of the zone despite its pedestrian velocity, but that wasn’t all. They also provided a comparison of a different pitcher’s sinker with similar traits to his and showed how it played up when elevated.

“It raised my eyes,” Kelley said. ”Like, really? Just believing in that pitch that’s what they do a really good job of.”

With Nashville, he used his fastball to allow one run and strike out 17 over 13 innings.

“That’s what really helped me,” Kelley said. “Just living off my fastball, knowing how good my fastball can be. Getting the ball at the top of the zone and then mixing in and out at the bottom here and there, just staying with my guns. I knew I had it, but with the analytics behind that, it really helped me get out to a hot start and get to feel like I belonged here.”

On Kelley’s second day with the Brewers on Wednesday, closer Josh Hader was away from the team tending to a family situation and setup man Brad Boxberger was unavailable due to recent usage. Counsell turned to the new guy in a tie game in the 11th inning.

On Kelley’s very first big-league pitch in 21 months, Travis d’Arnaud hit a bleeder against the shift for a single that scored the runner who began the inning on second. That would be all the Braves would get, though, in a situation where allowing only one run is considered getting the job done.

Kelley did it by throwing sinkers for 13 of 15 pitches, with nine of them elevated. He struck out one and the hardest-hit ball against him was 79 mph.

When Keston Hiura led off the bottom half of the inning with a walk-off homer, it made a winner of Kelley for the first time in his 15th big-league game.

Then, it was right back to Nashville. As goes the life of a baseball player sometimes.

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Brewers activate Andrew McCutchen; option Trevor Kelley to Class AAA