Pat Murphy has benched players before, but Cooper Pratt’s was different

Aug. 26, 2026, 6:09 p.m. CT NEW YORK – Pat Murphy, the distributor of nicknames in the Milwaukee Brewers clubhouse, has a moniker in mind that he doesn’t want to go by.  “I’m not trying to be Johnny Hardass,” Murphy said from his office at Citi Field before his team’s game against the New York Mets on Aug. 26.  Outside the doors of the visiting clubhouse across the hall from him, that is indeed his reputation to some, further cemented by his mid-game benching of rookie shortstop Cooper Pratt the night prior. After failing to get a bunt down before a blooper to right in his next at-bat where Pratt took 5.8 seconds to get to first base and didn’t try to stretch it into a double, Murphy immediately removed him from the game, a swift decision that had far more layers to it than just that play. It wasn’t the first time Murphy has sat a young Brewers player on the pine – ask Sal Frelick or Caleb Durbin or Tobias Myers or Brandon Sproat or Robert Gasser – but it was the largest spectacle of any of the mid-game yankings yet. Many questioned if the punishment fit the crime.
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