A Cy Young winner back in big leagues ... for $1?!

DENVER – Two and a half hours before he delivered the first pitch of the Brewers’ sweep-clinching 6-5 win over the Rangers at American Family Field last Wednesday, Dallas Keuchel signed his contract. Milwaukee assistant general manager Matt Kleine hustled off to file the paperwork with Major League Baseball, making it official that the 2015 AL Cy Young Award winner was back in the big leagues with a team that could really use the innings right now.

In the span of 72 hours, Keuchel went from Triple-A Tacoma in Seattle’s system to pitching a Major League game in Milwaukee.

All it took was $1 and a lot of moving pieces – including a pair of 100-pound Great Danes.

“It was fun, but very, very much a whirlwind,” Keuchel said.

Kleine used the same word in telling the story of how Milwaukee acquired an arm on the fly: “Fun.” So did Brewers run prevention coordinator Walker McKinven in explaining how the Crew got Keuchel to the mound while the ink was still drying on his contract.

“It’s like putting a puzzle together,” Kleine said.

This puzzle is a work in progress. An exhausted Keuchel surrendered a three-run lead and didn’t make it through his fourth inning. Fortunately, the Brewers bailed him out with a Jackson Chourio inside-the-park home run and a comeback victory over the Rangers. The day, all in all, was a success. Keuchel will do it again Tuesday night at Coors Field against the Rockies.

“I think it’s exciting,” McKinven said. “Especially in our situation, a former Cy Young Award winner coming in and starting a game for us is fun. Let’s see what we’ve got here.”

The Brewers’ need for starting pitching has been well-documented, the Trade Deadline is a month away and sellers are holding for now, general manager Matt Arnold said. So, Milwaukee has been scouring the Minors for intriguing arms and settled on the 36-year-old Keuchel, who had a 3.93 ERA and improving velocity at Tacoma.

During the middle innings of the Brewers’ 6-2 win in San Diego on June 23, executive advisor Matt Klentak reached out to Mariners GM Justin Hollander to express interest in Keuchel. The two previously worked together with the Angels, so they were able to work out a deal in relatively short order. While out to dinner that night in Tacoma with his wife, MLB Network and NHL Network host Kelly Nash, Keuchel heard the first rumblings of a trade in the works.

The Brewers would get Keuchel with a promise to bring him to the big leagues. In return, according to reporting from The Associated Press, the Mariners would get $1.

“For a veteran guy, typically, teams are going to try to do the right thing,” Kleine said. “I give the Mariners a lot of credit for doing the right thing.”

On Monday, Keuchel went golfing. On Tuesday, he woke up to a text from his agency saying, in effect, “Get to Milwaukee.”

With time of the essence and three dogs to wrangle, including Great Danes Indy and Winston, Keuchel was relieved to find a slot available with a chartered flight service. He made it to American Family Field in the middle of Tuesday’s game and reunited with Brewers head athletic trainer Scott Barringer, an old friend from the Astros. A physical exam is standard before a player signs a contract.

By then, Brewers catcher William Contreras was already deep into game planning for the following afternoon.

When Contreras heard on Tuesday that Keuchel may be coming, he started to do background work on his own – even though there was no guarantee that Keuchel would come straight to the Majors. If there was any chance a veteran, former All-Star and Cy Young Award winner was joining Milwaukee’s rotation, Contreras wanted to be educated on the matter before he arrived. “The best catchers,” said Nestor Corredor, who coaches the Brewers' catchers, “have that ability to think ahead.”

Contreras started with YouTube videos of Keuchel before asking Corredor to join him in the Brewers’ video room. There, Milwaukee's players have access to footage from Keuchel’s outings in Triple-A this season, plus his past games in the Major Leagues. Some of Contreras’ work on Keuchel began before he caught all nine innings of the Brewers’ 3-1 win over the Rangers on June 25.

Meanwhile, Brewers pitching coaches Chris Hook and Jim Henderson along with McKinven – who switched to No. 63 so Keuchel could have his usual No. 60 – constructed the broad outlines of a game plan for Keuchel against the Rangers. But they left most of the decisions for this first outing to Keuchel, who, in his 13th Major League season, knows what he needs to do. Wednesday’s pregame meeting with Keuchel, Contreras, backup catcher Eric Haase (just up from Triple-A Nashville) and Milwaukee’s coaches was as much about getting to know Keuchel as a study of the opposing lineup.

In time, the Brewers will probably offer more advice. They had the same experience last year with another former Opening Day starter, Julio Teheran, who started a game the same day he signed with Milwaukee and went on to deliver 71 2/3 innings with a 4.40 ERA.

“We trust the guy,” McKinven said. “We just want to spend some time getting to know him, letting him talk and do what he thinks is going to make him successful. With somebody different, maybe it’s a different kind of meeting.”

Keuchel certainly wasn’t satisfied with the result. Staked to a 4-1 lead through three innings, he surrendered a pair of homers in the fourth and left the game in a 5-4 deficit before the Brewers rallied.

“It was all on adrenaline,” Keuchel said. “The couple of Triple-A stops I was at, I’ve told guys, ‘You can be in good shape and throw seven innings in Triple-A, but when you get to the big leagues, every pitch is very stressful.’ When you’re on the mound in front of 30,000 people and want to do the best you can, that takes a lot out of you.

“That first inning the other day, I was all amped up. Did well, but it was an out-of-body experience, even with all of the experience I have. Inning two, I thought I was going to settle in, but I let it get away a little bit. Luckily, I was able to corral it.

“Inning three, I was wiped. But I can’t tell ‘Murph’ [Brewers manager Pat Murphy] that I’m wiped in the third inning. So, it didn’t go how I wanted it to go in the fourth, but now I have my feet under me. I’ll be able to focus on what I like to do.

“This is just my journey this year.”