{"id":81090,"date":"2024-07-24T14:35:15","date_gmt":"2024-07-24T18:35:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=81090"},"modified":"2024-07-24T14:35:15","modified_gmt":"2024-07-24T18:35:15","slug":"christian-yelichs-breakout-season-il","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/07\/24\/christian-yelichs-breakout-season-il\/","title":{"rendered":"Christian Yelich’s Breakout Season On Hold After Latest Back Issues"},"content":{"rendered":"

CHICAGO \u2013 Christian Yelich’s<\/a> resurgent season<\/a>\u00a0has been put on pause thanks to a recurring back issue that sent the Milwaukee Brewers\u2019 All-Star outfielder and National League leader in batting average and on-base percentage to the injured list for the second time this season.<\/span><\/p>\n

Christian Yelich’s Breakout Season On Hold After Latest Back Issues<\/h2>\n

Milwaukee placed Yelich on the IL Wednesday morning after having to pull him for a pinch hitter late in a 1-0 victory over the Cubs Tuesday night at Wrigley Field.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been feeling pretty bad for a few days,\u201d Yelich said. \u201cJust trying to figure out how to get through it and realized I couldn\u2019t and can\u2019t and I was doing nobody any good out there so I kind of just decided there were big at-bats late in the game and I was definitely not the right person to do that.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBeing stubborn and going out there wasn\u2019t going to do anyone any good.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite missing 20 games earlier this season with back problems, Yelich began the day leading the National League in batting average (.315) and on-base percentage (.406) to go along with 11 home runs, 21 stolen bases and a .910 OPS. He was a big reason the Brewers began the day with a five-game lead over the rest of the NL Central.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a big blow,\u201d manager Pat Murphy said. \u201cI don\u2019t know if he\u2019s leading baseball in hitting or whatever, but he\u2019s been an offensive machine. The attitude he brings. It\u2019s a huge loss and hopefully we can get him back. He tried like heck to play injured. It\u2019s been going on for a while now. Hopefully we can get him back.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Whether or not that happens remains to be seen. While previous back issues have focused primary on rest, recovery and regaining strength and stability, Yelich took a more ominous tone when discussing the injury on Wednesday.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Yelich Timeline<\/h3>\n

He\u2019s already undergone back imaging and is scheduled to meet with a specialist in Milwaukee on Thursday.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t really want to get into the specifics of it,\u201d Yelich said. (It\u2019s) not great, that\u2019s for sure.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll have to see what\u2019s going on.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The severity of Yelich\u2019s injury could impact general manager Matt Arnold\u2019s plans for the trade deadline. The deadline is now just one week away. The Brewers were expected to focus primarily on bolstering their pitching staff, primarily their starting rotation, but despite a bumper crop of talented outfield opens already on the roster, Arnold may need to be on the hunt for a bat as well should Yelich need to miss significant time.<\/span><\/p>\n

That, of course, is easier said than done.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do you suggest we do, go get Vlad Jr.?,\u201d Murphy said. \u201cI mean, for what Yeli does for this lineup and this clubhouse, I don\u2019t know there\u2019s too many players who can replace him. I mean that. He\u2019s got a special niche here with us. It\u2019s a huge loss, and we\u2019ve had some huge losses this year. I can name their names if\u00a0 you would like me to repeat the list. But this is huge, no matter how serious. Whatever number of games we lose him for, it\u2019s serious.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

While Milwaukee lost one valuable bat Wednesday, it did gain another. After Yelich was placed on the IL, the Brewers reinstated catcher Gary Sanchez from the injured list.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sanchez\u2019s return and Yelich\u2019s injury allows the Brewers to keep catcher Eric Haase on the roster. That gives Murphy the ability to use either in the designated hitter spot when not spelling William Contreras behind the plate with Jackson Chourio, Garrett Mitchell, Sal Frelick, and Blake Perkins covering the outfield.<\/span><\/p>\n

Main Photo Credits: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CHICAGO \u2013 Christian Yelich’s resurgent season\u00a0has been put on pause thanks to a recurring back issue that sent the Milwaukee Brewers\u2019 All-Star outfielder and National League leader in batting average and on-base percentage to the injured list for the second time this season. Christian Yelich’s Breakout Season On Hold After Latest Back Issues Milwaukee placed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5129,"featured_media":81092,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[27,1071],"tags":[28522,404,5746,1389,40,2513,6506,645,21201,4885,49],"class_list":["post-81090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-brewers","category-mlb","tag-blake-perkins","tag-christian-yelich","tag-eric-haase","tag-garrett-mitchell","tag-gary-sanchez","tag-injured-list","tag-jackson-chourio","tag-nl-central","tag-pat-murphy","tag-sal-frelick","tag-trade-deadline"],"modified_by":"Evan Mazza, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5129"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81090\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}