MILWAUKEE – Matt Kinney and the Milwaukee Brewers needed each other.

So far, it’s been a great marriage.

Eight years after being drafted by the Boston Red Sox, the righthander is having a breakout year for the Brewers, the first team to give him a real chance.

“I’ve never been happier playing with any team,” he said before a recent game at Miller Park.

Despite a mid-season slump, Kinney, 26, has been one of the bright spots on a team that is desperately trying to develop young pitching. In 26 games, he is 8-9 with an 4.65 ERA, solid numbers for a pitcher on the last-place squad in the National League Central.

“He’s got the stuff to be a bona fide, possibly even a No. 1 guy in the big leagues,” said Milwaukee pitching coach Mike Maddux, whose brother, Greg, is the ace of the Atlanta Braves. “Other teams, I mean, they don’t enjoy hitting off him. He’s got some quality pitches that can make you look awfully bad.”

Starts with Red Sox

It was a long road to major-league success. A 1995 Bangor High School graduate, the son of Jeff and Debbie Kinney was a sixth-round draft choice by the team he followed while growing up, and pitched in the Boston organization for three years.

“He was definitely one of the guys whom we knew had a good chance to make it to the major leagues,” said Gerald Perry, the Pittsburgh Pirates hitting coach who was a coach at Boston’s Single A Michigan team in 1997 when Kinney pitched there. “That’s saying a lot for low Class A ball.”

Despite having good credentials, the 6-foot-5 pitcher went 21-23 for four Boston minor-league clubs, and was traded to Minnesota in 1998.

“I knew it was a great opportunity [to go to the Twins], but you’re still a little bit bummed out leaving the team you grew up watching and always hoped to play for,” he said. “Growing up, I just thought you are supposed to play for the Red Sox. I didn’t realize the whole business part of it.”

He advanced through the Twins system, and made eight starts for Minnesota in 2000, going 2-2 with a 5.10 ERA. He spent all of 2001 in the minors, but made 12 starts and two relief appearances last year for the Twins, struggling to a 2-7 record with a 4.64 ERA.

Brewers needed help

The Twins were the surprise team of 2002, winning the AL Central, buoyed by a strong, young pitching staff. They had plenty of good arms and did not feel Kinney was part of their future.

In contrast, Milwaukee had suffered its 10th consecutive losing season and had not made the playoffs in 20 years. For years, the Brewers told their fans they could compete for a playoff position, despite having little talent and one of the lowest payrolls in the majors.

In September 2002, the Brewers brought in a new management team led by president Ulice Payne and general manager Doug Melvin. The duo took the pressure off players by telling fans it would take time to build a winner and made it a priority to stock the organization with strong, young arms.

One of their first moves was to trade for Kinney, getting him for two minor leaguers who were not highly regarded. Suddenly, he went from an afterthought to a valued pitcher, on a team that had few aspirations of winning soon and the time to let him develop at his own pace.

“If you had a bad game with the Twins, they were like ‘We don’t know when you’re going to throw again,'” he said. “Whereas here, it’s ‘Let’s get ’em in five days.'”

Spring training woes

Kinney came to Milwaukee’s spring training facility in Chandler, Ariz., knowing he had a chance to crack the Brewers’ rotation. He competed with Ruben Quevedo for the final spot in the rotation, and both struggled.

“I don’t know how to explain it, but I was frustrated to come over to a new team and not do that well for a new team,” he said.

Kinney had a better final spring outing than Quevedo. With few, if any, other options, the coaching staff chose Kinney to be the team’s fifth starter.

They made the right choice.

Regular season success

In his first five starts of the season, he was the team’s most consistent pitcher, going 2-1 with a 2.48 ERA

“I started out the season great, but then I started doing too much,” Kinney said.

It led to a mid-year stretch where he went 1-4 with a 7.68 ERA in eight starts. The Brewers remained committed.

“If I’m on the Twins there, maybe they don’t give me the chance to get out of it,” he said. “Here, they did. The last six games I was throwing the ball pretty well. That’s the difference.”

In his last five starts, Kinney is 2-1 with a 2.27 ERA. He’s had some dominant outings, his best coming last week when he threw eight shutout innings against Philadelphia.

“It wasn’t because I was trying to be perfect,” he said. “It was because I was trying to get ahead of guys and attack, doing things I did early in the season. More times than not it will work out in your favor.”

The Brewers have several good prospects at Double A Huntsville and Single A Beloit and are hoping to get some of them to be regulars in the majors in 2005.

While waiting for those players, the Brewers’ braintrust mention Kinney as one of the building blocks to the team’s future success.

“He’s gone through some of the better lineups in the National League and has stifled them,” Maddux said.