Brock Stewart joins Dodgers' rookie pitcher run in Milwaukee

One day after Julio Urias got the win in his seventh major league start, the Dodgers' rookie series continues with Brock Stewart making his major league debut on Wednesday night against the Brewers at Miller Park.

Stewart will be followed on Thursday by technical major league rookie Kenta Maeda, giving the Dodgers three consecutive first-year starting pitchers for the first time since Jim Golden, Phil Ortega and Ed Rakow started the final three games of the 1960 season.

But before the third game, there is the matter of Stewart, continuing a meteoric rise that saw him begin his year in Class-A Rancho Cucamonga. Two starts with the Quakes were followed by nine starts with Double-A Tulsa, then three starts with Triple-A Oklahoma City.

The 6'3 right-hander has allowed 17 total runs in those 14 starts, putting up a ridiculous 1.47 ERA in 86 innings, with 99 strikeouts and 14 walks.

He is a fly ball pitcher but allowed no home runs in his 11 starts this year with Rancho and Tulsa. He allowed three home runs in his three Triple-A starts, but that was mitigated by his dominating 27 strikeouts against only two walks in 18⅔ innings.

Stewart was drafted in the sixth round in 2014 out of Illinois State, where he played third base but pitched only occasionally, just 27⅔ total innings, including 26⅔ innings as a redshirt junior in 2014.

Dodgers director of amateur scouting Billy Gasparino, then with the Padres, was interested in Stewart as a pitcher, and asked the opinion of one of his scouts, Jeff Stewart, Brock's father. Per Vince Lara-Cinisimo at Baseball America:

"I downplayed him," Jeff Stewart said. "I told Billy, ‘Billy, he’s better than where I’ve got him. He throws strikes, he’s been up to 95, he’s going to be OK. I’d just like us not to take him. I put him in as this and he’s better than that.

"‘You do what you want with Brock, but I’d like him to cut his own path,'" he told Gasparino, now with the Dodgers.

"As it turns out the whole industry was light on him," he said. "(The Padres) should have taken him. It’s our fault, but it all worked out now because I’m with the Dodgers."

Stewart will be the ninth starting pitcher used by the Dodgers in 2016, in their 80th game. In 2015, they used their ninth starting pitcher in their 27th game, on May 6, also in Milwaukee.

He is the fourth starting pitcher to make his major league debut in 2016 for the Dodgers, joining Maeda, Ross Stripling and Urias.

Game info

Time: 5:10 p.m. PT

TV: SportsNet LA