'Grinding' Yelich gets breather, out of starting lineup in St. Louis finale

ST. LOUIS -- Brewers manager Pat Murphy gave Christian Yelich the day off Thursday and called him into the office to present a list of eight MLB stars.

Here are the names Murphy had written down:

• Manny Machado
• Mookie Betts
• Jose Altuve
• Francisco Lindor
• Alex Bregman
• Cal Raleigh
• Corey Seager
• Trea Turner

What do those players have in common with each other -- and with Yelich? They are highly-paid stars on teams with high expectations who are underperforming this season. Of those players on Murphy’s list, Betts owned the highest OPS going into Thursday’s games at .722. That’s 153 points below his career average.

Altuve was next at .702, then Machado at .686. All the way down to Raleigh at .585.

Murphy’s point was that Yelich, with a .707 OPS going into the night and a 95 wRC+ thanks to his solid start to this season, is doing OK in the big picture. Even if it might not feel that way during a slump that has shaved 108 points from his OPS in the past five weeks.

“He’s grinding,” Murphy said. “But I tell you, no one cares more. And this guy works. He cares, he really doesn’t want to disappoint the organization. …

“Yeli’s underlying numbers, some of them are very good. I think in order for us to achieve our goals, he’s got to play. We have to let him find his way through this a little bit.”

That means Yelich will continue to hit atop the Brewers’ lineup, Murphy said.

“Where would you want me to hit him, seventh?” he said. “No, it makes it worse. You can’t take the ‘C’ off his uniform, you know what I mean? You don’t do that. You believe in him more. You show him love. Give him direction and believe he’s on it.”

It’s why Murphy was showing so much love for Yelich after he delivered three hits, including the go-ahead RBI in Game 1 of the Brewers’ doubleheader sweep of the Cardinals on Tuesday.

Between games, Murphy wanted everyone to know that Yelich rode over to Busch Stadium with the coaches at 7:30 a.m. CT for a day on when the first pitches were at 1:15 p.m. CT and 6:45 p.m. CT. It made for an especially long day, although the 34-year-old Brewers star has had a lot of those lately. He came into that afternoon in a 3-for-30 slump and hitting .202 since his last three-hit game on June 1.

But in his 14th Major League season, Yelich isn’t ready to succumb to Father Time. And Murphy wanted everyone to know about that.

“Write that down,” the manager told reporters that day, “because people have got to know how much this kid cares about the team and about the Brewers, and he feels awful that he's not producing at the rate of 30 homers and 100 RBIs like he did last year. He feels awful about it.

“He's working his tail off, and to come up today and do what he did, I’m just really proud of him. Three hard contacts [in Game 1], and the first thing he did after the game is he said, ‘Murph, don't rest me. I want to play the second game.’ That's a sign of a guy that's hungry.”

But then Yelich went 1-for-8 over the next two games before getting Thursday off.

Still, the Brewers have been winning. Going into Thursday night they were hitting .209 as a team with runners in scoring position, third-lowest of the 30 MLB teams. And yet the Brewers won 12 of 17 games in that stretch.

“We find a way in ‘winning time’ in those last few innings to push something across,” Yelich said. “We manufacture something even though things aren’t going our way the last few weeks. You run into those stretches during a baseball season, and you have to find ways to survive them.”

That’s what he’s been doing, too.

“It’s been a tough month, for sure,” Yelich said. “You just have to keep going, keep working, keep trying to find a way. I’m trying to put in the work.”

“He’s got a pretty nice baseball card,” Murphy said, “and I’m sure his bank account is better than all of ours times 10. But he’s so quiet and humble about what he does. His humility is No. 1. If anyone knew how hard he is on himself, it would hurt you.”