Tales of Beau Brieske, a hyperbole-worthy reliever

This story was excerpted from Jason Beck’s Tigers Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

CLEVELAND -- Beau Brieske was two years from being born when the first “Tales of Bill Brasky” sketch ran on “Saturday Night Live” in 1996. It featured four loudmouth business travelers at an airport bar telling increasingly tall tales of the man they called the greatest salesman in their department. The sketch was reprised years later to take place at a hotel bar.

Brieske has no connection to the sketch, but his name sounds eerily similar. The more opportunities he has had to pitch in big situations, the more the meme has been tied to the Tigers' reliever. It has made him, for some, the most familiar name in a Detroit bullpen without superstars, All-Stars or even veterans.

As the Tigers prepare to face the Guardians in a best-of-five American League Division Series beginning on Saturday afternoon in Cleveland, Brieske has a chance to be a big factor in manager A.J. Hinch’s pitching strategy of mixing and matching openers, bulk pitchers and relievers on days when Tarik Skubal doesn’t start.

“The thing that I always tell myself,” Brieske said, “is you've got to trust that if your name's getting called, there's a reason for it, and you're the guy for the situation. You've got to go out there, do your job and that's it.”

In keeping with the theme, here are some tales of Beau Brieske, with varying levels of truth.

He was the last and best 27th-round Draft pick the Tigers made. Baseball stopped having a 27th round because of him.

The first part is true, the last part is not. Brieske was the Tigers’ 27th-round selection in 2019, the final year before MLB shortened the Draft. He’s just the seventh 27th-round pick by the Tigers to reach the Majors since the Draft began in 1965. Among that group, Brieske's 1.1 bWAR ranks second only to '95 pick Matt Thornton, who didn’t sign with Detroit and was Seattle’s first-round pick three years later.

He’s a ThunderWolf.

Brieske is the only Major Leaguer to come out of Colorado State-Pueblo, known as the ThunderWolves. Goose Gossage attended CSU-Pueblo for a quarter after being drafted out of high school in 1970, but he never actually played baseball there.

? Tigers-Guardians position-by-position breakdown

He holds the Comerica Park record for most career passing yards.

We really don’t know, but it’s possible. Brieske picked up the daily habit of throwing a football from Minor League teammate Brendan White. It was White’s football, so when Brieske was promoted to Double-A Erie in 2021, he had to get his own. He found a beat-up football on sale at an Erie sporting goods store and threw it daily, then he made it a team activity when he was called up two years ago. Brieske got a new football later thanks to the Detroit Lions.

He gained about five miles per hour in his fastball in two years.

Much like tales of Bill Brasky’s height and weight would grow as the sketch went on, Brieske’s fastball velocity keeps growing. But it’s legit, and it’s a testament to Brieske’s attention to mechanics, along with the work of the Tigers’ pitching development group. He averaged 92-94 mph in his first full pro season of 2021 as a starter at High-A West Michigan, bumped it up to 94.3 mph in his rookie season in '22, then reached 96.6 mph last year in his transition to bullpen. Brieske averaged 95.9 mph this year in the regular season, but he sacrificed some velocity to get more vertical break. Then came the playoffs.

His first 100 mph fastball came in his postseason debut.

True. Brieske had been flirting with triple digits through September, but when he entered in the ninth inning against the Astros in Game 1, he threw a pair of 100.1 mph fastballs to Chas McCormick, who fouled them both back.

He stranded the bases loaded for the Tigers’ first postseason save in 11 years.

True. It wasn’t easy, but when Astros outfielder Jason Heyward lined out to Spencer Torkelson, Brieske earned the Tigers’ first postseason save since Joaquin Benoit in Game 1 of the 2013 ALCS.

He was the only right-hander Kyle Tucker faced in the AL Wild Card Series.

True. The Tigers’ "pitching chaos" plan for Game 2 had three left-handers set up for Tucker and Yordan Alvarez. But when Brieske replaced Brant Hunter to face Jose Altuve with one out in the fifth, that meant he had to face Tucker, whom he struck out looking at a 99 mph fastball.

He jogged with a fridge on his back.

No, that’s from the Bill Brasky sketch.

He has Jim Leyland's face on a T-shirt.

True. Tigers players received Leyland T-shirts for his Hall of Fame celebration at Comerica Park in August. Brieske still wears his.

He’s the first Tigers pitcher since 1929 to start on back-to-back days.

True! Brieske retired all four Orioles he faced as Detroit’s opener on Sept. 13, then he tossed a scoreless first inning against them the next day, becoming the first Tiger to start on consecutive days since George “The Bull” Uhle.

He pitched in every inning for the Tigers this season.

Not literally every inning. But at some point this season, like Tyler Holton, Brieske has pitched everywhere from the first inning to the 10th. He also pitched in the 12th and 13th innings in a game in September.

He had an out-of-body experience escaping a ninth-inning jam.

Almost true.

“Almost like an out-of-body experience,” Brieske said of getting out of a two-on, no-out, ninth-inning jam in Baltimore on Sept. 21 and tossing two scoreless frames for an extra-inning win. “The adrenaline was just so high, I don’t know if I’ve ever had that much.”

To Beau Brieske.