Following the conclusion of each game that he pitches in, Tobias Myers checks his phone for feedback from his biggest fan, but also his harshest critic: his mother.

“She’ll still text me during the game. I’m out on the mound and she’s texting me while I pitch,” Myers said. “After the White Sox start, I go in and check my phone. She’s watching it live and texting me. ‘Too many balls! Stop walking people.’

“I’m like, ‘Mom, you should’ve played. You sound like you can do it.’”

It isn’t just after his outings in the big leagues that Angela Myers offers a swift dose of motivation to her son. It’s also part of the reason that Myers, the owner of a 5-2 record and 3.12 earned run average as a rookie with the Milwaukee Brewers, has gotten this far.

It wasn’t long ago that Myers was coming off a disastrous year. In 2022, Myers' seventh season in the minor leagues, he went an almost-unfathomable 1-15 with a 7.82 ERA at Class AAA. He had the rug pulled out from underneath him before making his major-league debut. He was designated for assignment by three teams in a span of two months.

As far as professional baseball seasons go, it was borderline disastrous.

Myers credits his mom as well as his fiancée, Leah, and agent for getting his career back on track that following winter after his confidence — not to mention his fastballs, too — had been pummeled.

“They kicked me in the (butt),” Myers said. “Hard. I needed it."

The motivation came in different forms, too.

“My mom was telling me, ‘You should go try to find a job,’” Myers said. “You know how parents are. ‘You sure you should be working out? You should be trying to get a job.’”

What went wrong for Tobias Myers in 2022

To understand how far Myers has come in less than two years requires an understanding of how rough it got in 2022.

Just about everything that could have gone wrong for him did, starting with what was coming out of his right hand on the mound. His velocity was way down, his mechanics were out of synch and he had no idea where the ball was going.

“It was brutal,” Myers said. “It was all mental, honestly.”

Myers was frustrated when he didn't make the Cleveland Guardians opening day roster but, just acquired from Tampa Bay in the off-season, he was on the 40-man roster and figured his time would come.

It did. Sort of.

Myers got the news that he was going to make his MLB debut as part of a doubleheader against the White Sox in April, but when he landed in Chicago, he had six missed calls from the Cleveland front office. When Myers called back, they informed him the team just had three players test positive for COVID-19.

“I’m like, ‘OK, cool, that could give me like a week up there,’” Myers said. “They’re like, ‘Unfortunately, with the new CBA, if you have any positive COVID cases, you can replace them with non 40-man guys.”

The Guardians did just that, calling up someone else instead and sending Myers back to Class AAA Columbus.

“That was what mentally messed me up,” he said. “I didn’t know how to handle that. I went into a pretty bad rut after that.”

Myers had a 6.10 ERA over his next 11 outings with Columbus and was designated for assignment in early July.

The Giants claimed Myers off waivers, but rather than send him to an affiliate to pitch, had him go to their complex in Arizona to work with their staff for a few weeks. Myers liked the analytical nature of the organization, but ultimately was doing nothing but throwing bullpens at the facility and not facing hitters in the middle of the season. After about a month he joined the Giants’ Class AAA affiliate, made two shaky starts and was again DFA’d when the club needed to clear a roster spot.

One last pit stop with a third team of 2022 – the White Sox – didn’t go well. At all. Seven starts, an ERA north of 15 and another DFA later, Myers was back on the market.

“They just can’t help anyone, in my opinion,” Myers said. “Maybe they’ve changed a little bit since then. But I always tell people now that if you don’t have anything figured out, don’t go to the White Sox.”

But one team's trash is the Brewers' treasure and they scooped him up in November 2022 on a two-year minor-league contract.

Brewers rave about Myers' makeup

Here Myers is now entrenched in a big-league rotation for a first-place team. It's been a perfect fit for both player and organization.

“They were super open about, ‘We want you to be you,'" Myers said. “'We don’t want to change you. Just be natural and come into camp and let it ride.'”

Myers’ default as a pitcher is to go full-octane and try to blow the ball by the batter – “I’m trying to hit the (catcher) in the forehead on every single throw,” as he puts it. He got away from that with Cleveland, which preached backdoor cutters and front-hip sinkers. They also tinkered with his mechanics, wanting him to brace stronger with his front leg, which led to him hyperextending his knee on his plant leg. The result was losing three inches of vertical movement on his fastball with a pitching motion similar to that of Aaron Rodgers.

“You don’t want that in baseball,” Myers said.

The Brewers want to let Myers be himself on the mound but also find the right spots to both step on the throttle and pull back.

“For him it’s, ‘Where is my throttle?’” pitching coach Chris Hook said. “You have to figure out where that is. Can I pitch at 85 percent right now and be OK? Instead of having to throw every pitch at 100 percent I think he’s understanding his throttle. He’s doing a lot of work to understand where that is.”

Myers first saw results of a controlled motor on the mound June 7 in Detroit, when he threw eight shutout innings. He’s carried it over since and is 4-0 with a 0.71 ERA in his last four starts.

“His stuff is no better now,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy said. “He trusts it now. He trusts he can respond and come back from a base hit and pitch from the stretch. He’s doing all great things.”

The Brewers were initially intrigued by Myers’ arsenal when they signed him heading into the 2023 season. What they’ve grown even more impressed by is his work ethic and preparation level.

“Makeup, off the charts,” Hook said. “When I talk about attributes of a starting pitcher, the level of detail, the level of intent during the work, openness and willingness to listen. That’s where in those early starts, it was like there’s so much I loved about what he was doing. He brings all of those things.”

When Hook talks to the Brewers’ minor-leaguers, he preaches 10 fundamental things that require no pitching skill – controlling the running game, fielding your position, knowing the scouting report – each pitcher needs to do at least an intermediate level to have success.

“He’s doing them all to an elite level,” Hook said of Myers. “You have to be somewhere in the intermediate level. And he’s doing all the things we ask to a high level.”

It was these attributes that, just as much as his fastball and cutter, that helped Myers get on track after he had a 5.40 ERA through his first seven starts.

“He’s got a maturity to him,” Hook said. “He’s got some resilience. He’s been punched in the face. All of these things. Sometimes with the way the game is built now, guys get here so fast that they don’t experience most of these things. They’re coming up quicker and they’re getting punched in the face. It’s unfair. It really is. But Tobias has that experience, and it’s beneficial.”

Myers sure has been punched in the face by the game, even as recently as last season when he had a 6.10 ERA at Class AA at this point of the year.

“I always believed it could work,” Myers said. "But I didn’t always think it was going to work out.”

It's working out, indeed.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Tobias Myers overcame adversity to become a key arm for the Brewers