The Brewers won Monday night in blowout fashion to maintain their strong hold on the top NL wild card and continue pushing the Cubs in the NL Central, where the Brewers trail by 2 1/2 games. Christian Yelich was the headliner, and rightfully so, hitting for the cycle for the second time this season. On the mound, however, left-hander Wade Miley turned in yet another gem, working five scoreless innings and only allowing five hits without a walk. 

Miley has now made 14 starts on the season and has a 2.08 ERA. Here's the number of earned runs he's allowed per start, broken down: 

0 ER: four times
1 ER: four times
2 ER: five times
3 ER: one time
4 or more ER: zero times

This is pretty shocking to see him getting results like this. Miley in 2016-17 had a 5.48 combined ERA and 1.57 WHIP. He was one of the worst rotation pitchers in baseball. He led the majors in walks last season, despite only pitching 157 1/3 innings. 

Miley was so unwanted that he didn't sign until spring training had already started and it was under a minor-league deal with a team already figuring to have a full rotation. He was just a depth signing, really. He started the season in Double-A, where he pitched to a 3.55 ERA before injuries forced the Brewers to give him a go. He's been brilliant. What gives? 

A big part of what's going on here appears to be Miley's development and greatly increased use of a cutter. For years he didn't use one. Late last season he started to heavily use it and he's thrown it far more than any other pitch this season. Per Brooks Baseball, he's thrown a cutter 51.55 percent of the time in September. It was zero percent as recently as June of last season. He's basically given up on his four-seam fastball (1.94 percent this month) in favor of the cutter. 

Miley admitted last month that he just decided in the middle of a game to start throwing cutters. From jsonline.com: 

"Just made it up in the middle of the game. Swear to God."

"You suck enough in this game – and I did, for two straight years – I guess insanity is what comes to mind." 

"I kept doing the same thing and expecting a different result and finally I was just like, 'I've got to make an adjustment.' That's what I came up with."

Opponents' slugging percentage against the cutter this month is .242. This season, opponents have hit .191 with a .294 slugging against Miley's cutter. 

With his run prevention success this season, Miley has to be in the mix for the top starter role with the Brewers as they likely head to the postseason. Might he even be trusted in the Wild Card Game? What a story that would be. 

Miley has competition, of course. Jhoulys Chacin and Chase Anderson seem like they would be fine choices as well. 

On Miley, though, there is some concern. He still doesn't get much soft contact (19.6 percent, compared to 41.7 percent medium contact and 38.7 percent hard contact) and doesn't strike many out. Among pitchers with at least 70 innings, only nine have a lower K/9 than Miley's 5.74. Not striking guys out much while not allowing much soft contact is a bad combination and, sure enough, Miley's peripherals (3.59 FIP, 4.23 xFIP, etc.) show he's a very good candidate for regression. 

Maybe that happens next year, though. For now, Miley's heavy usage of a pitch he decided to throw in the middle of a game last season has him with a great chance to be an important starter in the playoffs, some eight months after signing a minor-league deal with a team that, at the time, probably didn't have a great need for him. 

Ain't baseball fun?