"Less than 24 hours after saying his bullpen was well-rested, Milwaukee Brewers manager Ken Macha found himself asking the newest addition to his bullpen, closer Trevor Hoffman, how long he could go.

"I did ask Hoffman if he has three or four innings in him," Macha said before the game Sunday. "He just started laughing at me."

It's nice to even have Hoffman to call on, even if just for the ninth inning. Hoffman, who suffered a right oblique strain in spring training, was reinstated from the disabled list Sunday after two rehabilitation appearances with Class AAA Nashville, the club Hoffman played for while coming up in the Cincinnati Reds' system 17 years ago.

Now, Hoffman had his opening day after 17 games of the 2009 season.

"I think 17 days in, to finally have your opening day is a little bit different," said Hoffman, baseball's career saves leader. "I'm definitely glad to be back."

This season marks the first time in Hoffman's career that he has started a season on the DL with the exception of 2003, when he missed nearly the entire season after having shoulder surgery.

He admitted that that situation was different from this one, being it's with a new team and knowing he wouldn't have to miss the majority of the season.

"It was different because then I knew starting the season was unattainable," Hoffman said. "This one I was kind of fighting the timeline.

"It's always frustrating when you don't get a chance to do the things you want to. But early on in this process it was doing no good to push things that (your body) just wasn't going to allow you to do."

Hoffman used his time on the shelf to observe and get to know the team, specifically the bullpen. He learned personalities and helped teammates when he could.

"It wasn't necessarily pulling out the pom-poms," he said, "but be an encouragement to guys and find a different way other than participating on the field to help out."

He was a big help for guys who just wanted to sit and talk shop. Todd Coffey, who helped fill in with Carlos Villanueva as closer while Hoffman was out, learned how a future Hall of Famer starts preparing at a certain point in the game by studying batters he might face in the ninth inning.

Hoffman also talked to Coffey and others about forgetting bad outings so they don't linger into the next one and also tossing out good ones so they don't become a crutch.

"Having him in the bullpen just to talk to was great," Coffey said. "I've learned a ton from him already. You can't ask for a better brain to pick. You get to see where his mind-set is, the way he starts looking at a lineup at a certain point because it might roll around to him and looking at their at-bats.

"It was a full onslaught to my brain.""