Notes: Small's new slider; Kelenic faces Crew

PHOENIX -- The Brewers’ most recent first-round Draft pick is among the pitchers working on a new offering this spring, but Ethan Small opted against breaking out his new slider in his debut against the A’s.

“I threw some good ones in the bullpen, but it didn’t really feel right,” Small said Tuesday morning, a day after he worked a scoreless inning against Oakland in his Cactus League Brewers debut. “My exact thought was, ‘If I throw this and it doesn’t do anything, it’s going to get hit out of the yard.’”

He added, “I’d rather just stick with what works the first time.”

Credit Small for knowing himself. It was his own initiative, Brewers manager Craig Counsell said, that led the 28th overall pick in last year’s Draft to add a slider over the offseason to the fastball, curveball and changeup he used to become a top prospect out of Mississippi State.

“He brought kind of the finished product to us, really,” said Counsell, who was impressed by Small's initiative. “For sure. [President of baseball operations David Stearns] mentioned it to him when we talked to him. And it’s a kid who has had success, too. Usually it comes out of a need for something else, and he’s had a whole bunch of success.”

Small was last year’s Southeastern Conference pitcher of the year after going 10-2 with a 1.93 ERA in 18 starts as a redshirt junior. He held opponents to a .164 average and struck out 176 batters in 107 innings with a fastball in the 90-91 range.

His initiative on the pitch repertoire front isn’t the only thing impressive about Small at 23 years old. Since high school, he has made a donation to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital for every strikeout.

Against the A’s on Monday, Small struck out a batter and walked one in a scoreless, hitless inning.

He was nervous about his first Cactus League action.

“It’s normal,” Small said. “If I didn’t get nervous, I would be weird, wouldn’t I?”

'Pretty special' day for Wisconsin’s Kelenic
He’s one of the best prospects in all of baseball, but he’s also a non-roster invitee to Mariners camp. That meant Seattle outfielder Jarred Kelenic was not exactly in position to storm into manager Scott Servais’ office and demand a spot in the starting lineup for Tuesday’s game against the Brewers at American Family Fields of Phoenix.

“It kind of helps,” Kelenic said, “when your manager is from Wisconsin.”

Servais was born in LaCrosse, Wis. Kelenic is from Waukesha, Wis., in the western suburbs of Milwaukee. So he was swinging the bat against his boyhood team when Kelenic went 1-for-3 in Seattle’s 2-1 win.

“You know, today was pretty special, being from just outside Milwaukee,” Kelenic said. “My family is in town for this. I remember when I got my invite to big league camp, the first thing I did was look at the schedule and see when I was going to play the Brewers, because they were my team growing up.

“To have my family here, I have a good relationship with Craig Counsell and went over there and said hi and talked to him before the game, it was pretty fun.”

The Mets drafted Kelenic sixth overall in 2018 and traded him to Seattle that November in the blockbuster that sent Robinson Canó and Edwin Díaz to New York. Kelenic ranked as the No. 11 prospect in all of baseball on MLB Pipeline’s Top 100 list. His friend Gavin Lux of the Dodgers (and Racine, Wis.) is second on that list. They both came through the Racine Hitters baseball program.

“I’m just trying to be a sponge out here,” Kelenic said of his first stint in big league camp. “I would say that the biggest thing is learning from the older guys that have done it, but at the same time being you. I got myself here and I’m not going to change, whether it’s a veteran telling me something. It’s taking the information, processing it, and then dispensing with what you don’t think you need.”

Bickford’s Brewers debut
Minor League right-hander Phil Bickford made his unofficial Brewers debut on Tuesday with a 1-2-3 ninth inning that was a long time coming. Bickford was a top pitching prospect when the Brewers acquired him with catcher Andrew Susac in a July 2016 trade that sent reliever Will Smith to San Francisco, but he was suspended for the first 50 games of 2017 after a second positive test for a drug of abuse, then broke his hand on a comebacker during the suspension. Bickford subsequently struggled with velocity issues, but he was in the 93 mph range with his fastball against the Mariners.

“It was incredible,” Bickford said. “All the work that we put in over the winter, and for me to get an opportunity to go out there ... was incredible. I really enjoyed it and I want to do it again.

"I went through tough times," Bickford added, "and I learned from it.”

Bickford has a head of steam going into this season after a strong finish to 2019 at Class A Advanced Carolina. He didn’t allow a run in his final 14 appearances spanning 26 innings out of the bullpen, with 39 strikeouts.

“He’s had a long road, a lot of ups and downs in it,” said Counsell. “He threw the ball really, really well. It was a nice little bonus at the end of the game for us. His fastball had a lot of life on it.”

Up next
Brewers relief ace and two-time reigning National League Reliever of the Year Award-winner Josh Hader is on the list to make his spring debut when Milwaukee travels to Scottsdale, Ariz. on Wednesday to play the Giants at 2:05 p.m. CT. Hader is on a slightly different schedule than the rest of the team's relievers, which is fitting for a pitcher who is used differently during the regular season. Right-hander Josh Lindblom is scheduled to start, and lefty Eric Lauer is also slated to appear. The game will air on the Brewers Radio Network.