Sports

Brewers Fans At Long Last Treated to Brandon Woodruff’s Homefield Return

Brewers Fans At Long Last Treated to Brandon Woodruff’s Homefield Return originally appeared on Athlon Sports.

In what will easily go down as a top five moment in the Milwaukee Brewers season, start Brandon Woodruff made his 2025 debut last Sunday after missing the entire 2024 season and more. The result was a 3-1 win over the Marlins.

The only problem: it wasn’t in Milwaukee.

The dream scenario would have had Woodruff making his triumphant return in front of the home fans. But after different setbacks during his minor league rehab assignment, Miami ended up being the location of both his final pitch in 2023 and his first one this year.

With his first start officially in the books, all eyes turned toward Saturday’s game against the Nationals. The Brewers were looking to extend their five-game winning streak and keep pace with the Cubs, but those weren’t the most important parts of the day.

For the first time in almost two years, Brandon Woodruff started a game in Milwaukee.

It was pretty clear that the fans were excited to see one of the team’s recent heroes take the field against Washington. As he took the field, the Brewers faithful gave Woodruff a rousing standing ovation.

Woodruff quickly got to work. He induced a ground out from CJ Abrams off of just two pitches and proceeded to strike out two of the next three batters, including All-Star James Wood.

He would go on to pick up another pair of strikeouts in the next inning, however the Nationals would also strike first in the game as Woodruff gave up a solo homer to outfielder Daylen Lile to give Washington a 1-0 lead.

Woodruff would continue to carve up a majority of the Washington lineup, striking out five batters over the next two innings, but would also give up another solo homer to Brady House in the fourth as well, putting the Crew down 2-0.

The Brewers would take the lead with three runs in the bottom of the fourth and after picking up his 10th strikeout followed by a Jacob Young single in the top of the fifth, Woodruff would be lifted from the game after 81 pitches.

The Nationals would end up taking the lead late in the game, eventually giving the Brewers a 5-3 deficit to overcome heading into the bottom of the ninth. And that’s exactly what they did as recent unexpected hero Andrew Vaughn tied the game with a two-run double and Caleb Durbin walked it off with an RBI single for a 6-5 victory.

Starting pitchers generally get extremely zoned in on the days that they start and often block out most of the external noise. But that didn’t stop Woodruff from at least taking a small amount of time to appreciate the moment per the postgame interview posted on X by 97.3 The Game.

Said Woodruff, “Walking out onto the field, I probably didn’t hear as much as I could, but there were a couple moments where I did take it in a bit and really hear the crowd and the fans and it was awesome.”

As good as Woodruff can be when he’s at his best, even he didn’t exactly see today’s outing coming. “Was I expecting to punch ten dudes out? Not even close. But, you know, that’s just part of the game. Some days you have good days like that, and yeah I just try to roll with it,” he said.

The Brewers have a chance to pick up their second series sweep in a row before getting a rest during the All-Star break. Then it’s time for the second half of the season, in which Milwaukee will have one of the best starters in franchise history locked in and ready to go.

Related: 4 Crystal Ball Predictions For The Brewers 2025 Draft

This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Jul 13, 2025, where it first appeared.

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