Brewers’ Kyle Harrison, after dominating Giants, leaves no doubt he’s in a better place

MILWAUKEE — Kyle Harrison told himself to treat Tuesday night’s game against the San Francisco Giants like any other start. Blot out the past. Bottle up the emotions. Tunnel his vision along with his pitches.

All of those thoughts got wrestled to the ground when the first batter of the game stepped into the box. It was Casey Schmitt, Harrison’s teammate at every minor league stop, beginning at Low-A San Jose when he was a 19-year-old left-hander still figuring out how to do his own laundry.

If Schmitt’s presence conjured memories of Harrison’s beginnings in the Giants organization, then the second batter of the game represented its end. It was Rafael Devers, the three-time All-Star slugger whom the Giants acquired from the Boston Red Sox almost exactly a year ago for a four-player package that included Harrison.

“You use that as fuel,” said Harrison, who was in the middle of his pre-start routine in the Dodger Stadium bullpen on June 12 of last year when he got tapped on the shoulder. “It sucked getting traded that day. I didn’t know what to expect and then I got sent to Triple-A (by the Red Sox) that same day. My head was spinning. But then you bring it back to, ‘I’ve just got to worry about baseball and get better each and every day and keep grinding, because one day it’ll work.’”

Everything is working for Harrison this year following another trade to Milwaukee in February. And everything was working against his original team Tuesday night.

Harrison authored perhaps his most dominant start in what’s been an All-Star first half. He struck out 10 of the first 16 batters he faced, yielded only a solo home run to Willy Adames before departing in the sixth inning and matched his career high with 12 strikeouts in Milwaukee’s 8-3 victory over the Giants at American Family Field.

Kyle Harrison matches his career high with strikeout No. 12! pic.twitter.com/fI2iZ8OC4N

— MLB (@MLB) June 3, 2026

“It’s always gonna feel personal, right?” said Harrison, whom the Giants drafted in 2020 out of Concord De La Salle High School and was committed to UCLA before signing for a $2.5 million bonus that was triple the slot value for a third-round pick. “I mean, I grew up 40 minutes from that ballpark, I had a great time there and I cherish my memories with them. It feels good (to beat them), but I’ve got to do it in another five days. So you can’t get caught up in that. It was fun to toe the rubber against them, though.”

Harrison appeared destined for greatness as a homegrown Giants star. He was ranked as the best left-handed pitching prospect in the minor leagues. His home debut in San Francisco in 2023, which came two weeks after his 22nd birthday, was a buzzing, 11-strikeout start against the Cincinnati Reds that included standing ovations after every inning and as much electricity as a performance out of Tim Lincecum’s prime.

“Trust me,” said Harrison, “I’ll never forget that one.”

It wasn’t an easy path to success from there. Harrison battled shoulder soreness and reduced velocity in 2024 while posting a 4.56 ERA in 24 starts, yet it was a promising sign that he kept finding a way to compete and pitch reliably deep into games.

“He was just going through some early career things that most guys go through,” Giants ace Logan Webb said. “You’ve got to get used to throwing more than usual, pitching with more adrenaline than usual. I wasn’t very good at that to start my career, either. There’s some growing points but he was going through it. He’s always been a stud. I think I said it last year that he’s going to be a star.”

The Giants hardly gave up on Harrison when they dealt him to the Red Sox but they might have felt a bit more confident dipping into their pitching depth at the time, when some of their other prospects had a little more luster and they hadn’t lost high-ceiling right-hander Hayden Birdsong to bouts of wildness followed by Tommy John surgery. Mostly, Giants president of baseball operations Buster Posey saw an opportunity to finally land the impact hitter three baseball administrations in San Francisco had tried and failed to acquire.

“I think anytime you’re giving up young talent, it’s a bit uncomfortable,” Giants GM Zack Minasian said on Monday. “In almost all cases, it comes back to what you’re getting in return. … It’s the price of doing business to get the type of talent that we got back.”

Even if the Giants can continue to rationalize every step of the Devers trade, it couldn’t have been comfortable to watch Harrison strike him out three times on Tuesday. Harrison dominated each confrontation and carved through the Giants lineup with a four-seam fastball that touched 97 mph and a syrupy slider that looked all too familiar.

Here are some other things that might make the Giants uncomfortable. They are 63-88 since making the Devers trade. Tuesday’s loss knocked them to 15 games under .500 and the worst record in the National League. They have the second highest rotation ERA (4.94) in the major leagues. And they lost another game in familiar fashion, as their pitchers failed to pound the zone and four walks came around to score.

For the Giants, who won their three World Series championships in 2010-14 with pitching and defense, acquiring the hitter they long coveted might have cost them a bit of their soul. What’s the point in having “a dude,” as Posey called Devers in last year’s introductory press conference, when the pitching staff is a dud?

Oh, and Devers is still owed more than $220 million through 2033. They won’t be done paying the last of the deferred money to him until 2043.

By then, Harrison will be 41 years old, and with any luck, he’ll be able to reflect on a career that included multiple All-Star appearances, some emotionally charged playoff runs and a metric ton of strikeouts.

There’s little doubt that first All-Star appearance is coming. Harrison entered Tuesday’s game with a 1.57 ERA in 10 starts — the lowest by a Brewers pitcher in his first 10 starts in franchise history, even edging out CC Sabathia (1.59 ERA), who was so good as a midseason acquisition in 2008 that he finished fifth in NL Cy Young Award balloting.

The most positive thing you can say about the Giants’ decision to trade Harrison is that the Red Sox look even worse for doing so. They shipped him to Milwaukee two days prior to the start of spring training as part of a six-player deal that netted them third baseman Chad Durbin.

When Harrison arrived in Brewers camp in Phoenix this spring, Milwaukee manager Pat Murphy made the same assumption he’d make about any player who’d been dealt twice in an eight-month span.

“You know how it is,” Murphy said. “It’s, ‘What’s going on, they don’t want me?’ That’s what I assumed, and maybe wrongly so, because he’s certainly pitched with confidence here.”

After the first inning Tuesday night, Murphy acknowledged that he made another assumption about his 24-year-old left-hander.

“I think that always brings on emotion (to face a former team), and I think it can be very dangerous, and it doesn’t always help,” Murphy said. “I talked to him after the first inning: ‘Hey, man, this is about the Brewers, you know. This isn’t about you and where you used to play. They gave you an opportunity.’ He looked at me like, ‘I got it.’

“I was creating something in my mind that probably wasn’t there.”

Well, maybe some of it was there. Harrison wasn’t in the greatest head space after getting traded twice. But he knew of the Brewers’ reputation for getting the most out of pitchers who’d already had a taste of the major leagues. He saw the success that former Red Sox pitcher Quinn Priester had in Milwaukee a year ago. When he arrived in Brewers camp, pitching coach Chris Hook simplified his repertoire instead of asking him to add a cutter or a complication.

“They loved my fastball and my stuff,” Harrison said. “It’s, ‘Oh, you’re not making me throw five different pitches? I love it.’ It’s not as in depth as everyone thinks. They just do a real good job at understanding the player, what he needs, and what his bad habits are, how to reinforce those (good) habits.”

Hook made one suggestion that stuck in the spring, convincing Harrison to move to the first base side of the rubber, which gave his slider more space to operate. The other major change involves Harrison’s arm angle, which dipped as low as 24 degrees in 2024 and is back up to 33 degrees this season. Most of that adjustment was a byproduct of health, growing into his body and no longer having to work around pitching with shoulder fatigue.

“Did you see him up close?” Webb said. “He’s jacked right now.”

From the higher arm angle, Harrison is better able to make his slider and fastball look the same out of his hand. A few simple visualization exercises, like using a plate during catch play, might be helping, too. Webb laughed and feigned disapproval that Harrison scrapped the changeup he’d shown him for a kick change. Harrison was so dominant with his fastball and slider Tuesday night that he only threw the changeup six times.

Other advantages that Harrison is enjoying in Milwaukee: a wellspring of run support from a relentless offense, an athletic and dynamic defenders at nearly every position, and the confidence that comes from a franchise that has posted one winning season after another.

“It’s just the fight we have, the belief every day,” Harrison said.

Harrison would be enjoying none of these advantages in San Francisco. The Giants are a long way from developing a positive reputation among their pitching minds, who are still having trouble with the easy stuff like making mound visits or getting a first relief pitcher loose before it’s too late.

It’s hard to admit but it’s even harder to deny: Harrison is in a much better place now.

Perhaps some emotional distance is helping, too.

“Being close to home, especially when I was young, it was like, ‘Man, everyone’s here, everyone’s watching,’” Harrison said. “It’s honestly kind of freeing in a way to be away from everything to an extent, right? It’s not like I was scared of it. But you feel like you could just come out here and compete. … It’s just a cool vibe here, and a bunch of good guys. So I’m happy I’m getting my foot in here.”