Through 15 games, injuries and questions have piled up for the Brewers at similar rates.
What have we learned about Milwaukee? What can we expect? When will the team get healthy again?
With the Brewers (8-7) facing uncertainties about Christian Yelich, the bullpen and other items, this week’s column addresses nine questions.
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When will Christian Yelich return?
Yelich maintained a fun and light disposition throughout the first couple of weeks. He acknowledged fans during home games on his jogs to left field. He even shared entertaining postgame videos on Twitter after wins.
Saturday was different.
During a postgame video conference to address his injury, Yelich leaned slightly back in his chair. He succinctly answered each question about his ailing back, occasionally lifting his hand to punctuate sentences when he was out of words. He never cracked a smile.
“Pretty frustrating to say the least,” Yelich said.
Yelich, 29, has experienced recurring back stiffness or soreness in recent seasons, including all four of his years with the Brewers. Though the issue has flared up once or twice a year, manager Craig Counsell on Friday pointed out that during Yelich’s time with the Brewers, the star left fielder’s back has never required a stint on the injured list.
Then Saturday happened.
The Brewers placed Yelich on the injured list Saturday, retroactive to April 14, with a lower back strain. He was removed from the game on April 11 against the St. Louis Cardinals with back soreness and hasn’t played since. He started baseball activities — running, hitting, fielding — on Thursday and was expected to ramp up things on Friday. He could not. He said that for the next few days he would shut down baseball activities.
Yelich also said that referring to the development as a “setback” would be too strong and indicated the latest flare-up was similar to previous ones. Those close to him concurred; Yelich has dealt with the injury before, and rest usually takes care of it. In this instance, he is said to be feeling better but just needs more time.
Yelich would be eligible to come off the injured list when the Brewers play the Cubs at Wrigley Field on April 24. When asked if Yelich would be sidelined for much more than the mandatory number of days, Counsell said, “We’re not anticipating that.”
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In nine games, Yelich is slashing .333/.459/.367.
“You just don’t really want to get out of the rhythm of the season,” Yelich said. “The stop, start, taking probably close to two weeks for me at least, from not playing to playing games. It’s something you’ve got to deal with and just get back out there, but it’s disappointing not to be out there. It’s frustrating that it popped up again.”
So, how bad is the timing of the injury?
Considering that it’s only mid-April, things could be worse, right?
Sure.
But that wasn’t exactly the way Yelich saw the situation.
“There’s not really ever a good time for it,” he said. “I guess that it’s not the last week of the season, but other than that, not really too many silver linings.”
The Brewers dropped two out of three games at American Family Field over the weekend to the plebeian Pirates. In both losses, Yelich’s usual spot in the batting order came up with the outcome on the line in the final innings. Those games marked the soft spot in the April schedule. Next is a three-game series in San Diego with the powerful Padres.
From a depth perspective, the Brewers are constructed to weather the injury. Billy McKinney has played well in left field. And Milwaukee still has Jackie Bradley Jr. in center, Avisaíl García in right and Tyrone Taylor off the bench. All are good players with differing strengths. But none are Yelich.
What also stings about the injury is the way Yelich was performing. After a poor 2020, especially compared to the standard of his previous two seasons, Yelich was off to a much better start in 2021. He has yet to hit a home run, and his strikeouts were still somewhat high. But Brewers hitting instructor Andy Haines said Yelich’s timing was good and getting better. Over his last 11 plate appearances, Yelich walked three times, struck out once and hit four balls hard.
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“He’s just a guy that we knew was close to how hot he can get offensively,” Haines said. “All those things that he’s kind of fought hard for in the offseason, they were happening, you know? You saw it. Like, he looked great. He looked like Christian up there.”
What about Kolten Wong and Lorenzo Cain?
A reminder Brewers fans do not want or need: It’s not just Yelich who is out — Kolten Wong and Lorenzo Cain are also sidelined.
The Brewers placed Wong on the injured list on April 10. He would be eligible to play during the series against the Padres, but it sounds as if his oblique injury requires a little more time.
“I don’t think it’s going to be at the 10-day mark,” Counsell said Saturday, “but the fact that he’s doing baseball stuff means we’re getting close.”
Wong has appeared on the field for infield work over the past few days, but it’s unclear how much he has been swinging and at what strength. When he was placed on the injured list, he said he felt the oblique issue the most while trying to swing a bat. Given how precarious oblique injuries can be, it’s expected that the Brewers will wait until Wong is 100 percent ready.
There is less information available on Cain, 35, who landed on the injured list Wednesday because of a left quad strain. Cain’s right quad limited him during spring training. There’s a chance Cain misses only a short amount of time, but Counsell wanted to get through the weekend first before commenting further.
Can the Brewers really score enough without these guys?
During the offseason, the Brewers prioritized quality plate appearances. They want hitters to be selective and make pitchers work. For players such as McKinney, Wong, Daniel Vogelbach and Luis Urías, among others, the foundation of success includes a strong knowledge of not just balls and strikes, but also which pitches they can do damage against. Only four teams in baseball swing less often than the Brewers (44.4 percent of the time). As of Sunday, no team in baseball was laying off as many pitches inside the strike zone as the Brewers, but their contact rate on such pitches was around league average.
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It’s a fine line between being selective and being passive, but since April 10, the day Wong went on the injured list, the Brewers have done a good job of straddling it. Since that day, the Brewers have walked 12.1 percent of the time, second most in baseball as of Sunday, while striking out just 22.3 percent of the time, seventh best in baseball. Certainly, some of that has to do with the lesser quality of pitching the Brewers have seen since the first week of the season. But a distinctly better understanding of when to lay off and when to swing helps explain why the Brewers have averaged 5.7 runs per game since April 10 despite hitting only nine home runs.
“Offensively, that’s just the crux of who we are,” Haines said. “If the ball is in your hot zone, you’d better be ready to go. And when it’s not, you’d better be able to check off of it. Yeah, we want home runs, I promise, but they have to throw the homer. They have to throw the walk. You can’t manufacture the game or dictate what the pitcher is going to do. It’s more about having an awareness of how important it is when the ball is not in your hot zone that you can lay off, take your walk and let the next guy do it.”
The best example has been Urías, whose 23.5 walk rate as of Sunday was leading all of baseball. Over his past five games, Urías is 4 for 12 with a home run, two doubles, six walks and four strikeouts.
Maybe, if Wong and Yelich return close to their respective minimum dates, the Brewers can sustain a solid offense for another week or so. They will be tested, however, against a talented Padres pitching staff. While role players such as Vogelbach and McKinney have performed well, the Brewers are going to need García, Bradley, Omar Narváez, Travis Shaw and Keston Hiura to do the heavy lifting.
While Narváez and Shaw have been consistent and Bradley has hit the ball the other way with more frequency, it’s García who stands out. While his counting numbers aren’t eye-opening, his expected stats are. He entered Sunday with a .351 expected batting average and .670 expected slugging percentage. Then he struck four balls with an exit velocity of 99 mph or higher on Sunday, including a home run.
With the Brewers needing to lean on him, what kind of signs is Keston Hiura showing?
When Keston Hiura hit a double to right-center with an exit velocity of 100 mph, Haines said to no one in particular inside the dugout, “He’s closer every day.”
Hiura is seeing the ball better. His timing is improving. He started the season 0 for 20, striking out twice in each of his first five games. The results still haven’t been great since, but he has made progress, however small. Hiura is 5 for his last 24 with one home run. He has struck out at least once in every game of the season, but hasn’t struck out twice in a game since April 7. He had 35 plate appearances to start the season before drawing a walk. But he has since drawn four walks in his last 16 plate appearances.
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Hiura’s average exit velocity of 90.3 mph is nothing great, but of the last 14 times he has made contact, he has struck seven balls with an exit velocity of at least 95 mph.
“He’s doing so many things well,” Haines said. “He has fought his timing early in the season. He has been a click early or a click late, and that’s what hitting is. It’s extremely challenging from that aspect of it. He’s just been a tick off with his timing.”
Billy McKinney has been mentioned here a couple of times. Why is he off to such a hot start?
Here’s a weird statistic that proves it’s too early to be looking at such things: McKinney entered Sunday with a 0 percent fly-ball rate despite starting the season 8 for 21. That seems … hard to do. But it’s true.
McKinney racked up different kinds of hits, but most of them were line-drive, one-hoppers to the outfield. Others were flares. One was an infield hit. Another was an extra-base hit because the ball traveled just out of the reach of an outfielder’s glove. The point is, in addition to his great defense in left field and his knack for getting to balls in a hurry, the most encouraging sign about McKinney has been his ability to put the ball in play. Good things have happened. The Brewers did not do enough of that last season.
“He’s always been kind of an advanced-type hitter, the bat-to-ball, the on-base skill set, probably one of the most professional guys I’ve seen,” said Haines, who worked with McKinney in the Cubs’ system when Haines was a minor-league coach with Chicago. “He kind of has an old soul to him as far as how professional he is.”
OK, enough of the offense. How close is Devin Williams to getting locked in?
With the Brewers trailing 5-3 in the bottom of the seventh on Sunday, Devin Williams started to warm up. Not long ago, Counsell announced that the Brewers would eschew high-leverage situations for Williams and would be more focused on getting him consistent work. The Brewers tied the score. Williams entered the game. A big spot. He proceeded to deliver his best outing of the season.
Williams pitched a scoreless inning, allowing one hit and registering a strikeout. He induced two whiffs on his change-up, which featured more break than last year. And his fastball hit 99 mph. All great signs.
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“Devin is feeling pretty good right now,” Counsell said, “so I think we’re getting there and making progress.”
Williams last pitched on Friday, when he allowed a home run off his change-up for the first time in his career. Before that outing, he hadn’t pitched since April 12. And that appearance was his first since April 7. As long as Williams’ shoulder is healthy, it seems best to pitch him on shorter rests than five-day spans. Of course, that’s tricky when wanting to be selective about the right situation. When asked why he didn’t go to the alternate site for regular work as opposed to trying to get locked in and built up during actual games, Counsell responded, “Because we think he’s one of our better pitchers.”
There’s absolutely no denying that. Perhaps Sunday’s outing was a sign that Williams is ready to resume the setup role in late-inning, high-leverage spots.
What’s up with this bullpen?
The Brewers’ bullpen is a concern and the main problem goes beyond Williams. It’s an issue concerning depth and experience.
Josh Hader has been otherworldly. He has yet to allow a hit or run. He has struck out eight and walked only one in 3 ⅔ innings spanning four appearances. But he is also expected to perform the role of a one-inning closer — at least for the time being. That was Hader’s role last season. It’s something he said he likes. And it’s something Counsell said in spring training would continue. The latest example was Sunday when Hader pitched only the ninth inning when a double-switch would’ve allowed him to also appear in the 10th.
“At this point in the year, we’re just going to stick with Josh for an inning right now,” Counsell said after Sunday’s game.
With better depth, that wouldn’t be much of an issue. It wasn’t much of one last year. And it’s probably best for Hader’s overall health given it’s only April. But at the moment, who else can the Brewers count on in their bullpen? It’s a mixed bag.
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Angel Perdomo had been outstanding until he allowed two base runners on Sunday before getting three outs in the sixth inning. Ditto for Brad Boxberger, the rare veteran in the Brewers’ bullpen, who allowed the game-tying home run on Sunday.
J.P. Feyereisen has shown signs of a breakout, but also faltered Sunday when his command betrayed him in the 10th. Brent Suter is typically dependable but has allowed runs in each of his past two outings. Josh Lindblom, who is out of options and is working as the long man in the bullpen, has allowed five runs in seven innings.
Despite struggling in his first couple of appearances, Drew Rasmussen is still going to be counted on to get right-handed batters out. His velocity was back hovering around 98-99 mph in his past two outings as opposed to 96-97 mph. Perhaps not coincidentally, he didn’t allow a run in either appearance.
Eric Yardley was recalled from the alternate site to fill Yelich’s roster spot. Counsell said Yardley threw the ball well on Saturday with a crisp fastball. Yardley had allowed five runs in his previous five innings before pitching a scoreless frame Saturday. He led the Brewers in appearances last year and was someone they planned to count on.
The issue of depth can be traced to Justin Topa’s injury before the season. That forced the Brewers to be more reliant on others, such as Rasmussen and Feyereisen. It’s likely that the young members of the bullpen, the guys they are counting on for middle relief, prove to be capable in time. There’s plenty of talent. But that’s not always a substitute for experience.
Realistically, what would make for a successful road trip?
The Brewers have three games in San Diego, starting Monday. They are off Thursday. Then they have a three-game series at Wrigley Field. The Brewers’ starters have pitched incredibly well, but against the Padres’ lineup, much can be learned about Brandon Woodruff, Corbin Burnes and Adrian Houser. Joe Musgrove, pitcher of the franchise’s first and only no-hitter, is expected to start Monday, with Chris Paddack following him on Tuesday (it’s unclear who the Padres will start on Wednesday).
A .500 road trip, with Woodruff and Burnes again shining, would be reasonable goals. Most importantly, the Brewers need to come back home with a couple of familiar faces.
(Photo of Devin Williams: Larry Radloff / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
