Brewers manager Pat Murphy had what he called “the toughest conversation of the year” in his office Tuesday morning.

Rookie relief pitcher Bryan Hudson was informed in that meeting that he was being optioned to Class AAA Nashville despite being one of the team’s best and most reliable arms out of the bullpen this season.

The move was part of a series of bullpen transactions prior to the second game of a three-game series with the St. Louis Cardinals at American Family Field. Bryse Wilson was placed on the 15-day injured list with a right oblique strain, Elvis Peguero was recalled from Nashville and Hoby Milner was activated from the injured list.

But the headliner was Hudson, who has a 1.73 earned run average as arguably the team’s most valuable reliever this season in 62 ⅓ innings.

The last part of that sentence, though, is a critical piece of the roster decision.

Since becoming a reliever in 2019, Hudson’s previous career-high innings thrown in 64 ⅓ last season. This year, including his outings during a rehab assignment in early August, Hudson has already thrown 65 ⅓. The big southpaw’s velocity has been in decline as the workload has increased, too; his average fastball was 91.8 mph through the end of May, but in August was 90.2 mph and in Monday’s outing dipped to 89.3 mph.

But Hudson had still been pitching well of late in terms of production. He hadn't allowed a hit over his last four outings and had allowed only three hits total in 11 ⅔ innings since coming back from an oblique injury that shelved him for two weeks in late July.

“Bryan’s been a huge part of this. I believe he was an all-star and deserved to be an all-star, and I believe that he’s been a huge, integral part of this,” Murphy said. “But (the decision was made) because he has options and because we haven’t liked everything we’ve seen about how the ball’s coming out and how he’s responding and that type of thing. When you just look at the actual stuff that’s going on, we hope that we can get him a little refresher and get it back to where he was earlier in the season.

“We felt like because we’ve got so much depth on the pitching staff, that this would be a good time to get him a refresher, get his mechanics (right) and be a refresher so he can come back as strong as he wants.”

Murphy indicated some time off will be part of Hudson’s plan with Nashville, as well as scheduling outings in advance.

“He’s way past what he’s throwing before and we’re trying to get ahead of it,” Murphy said. “And he has options, so that’s a big thing.”

Hudson, who has two minor-league options remaining, would not burn one if recalled by Milwaukee before spending 20 days in the minors.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Brewers option Bryan Hudson to minors; place Bryse Wilson on IL