MILWAUKEE -- The Brewers expect Christian Yelich to be sidelined at least a month by his left groin injury, and Jackson Chourio and Andrew Vaughn will need at least a couple more weeks to recover from broken bones in their left hands.
For those scoring at home, that means the Brewers will play out the month of April without three of the top four hitters from their projected Opening Day lineup.
So, what now?
The schedule won’t stop for them to get healthy.
“We’ve been through some tough times before,” Yelich said. “I think last year we were 23-25 at one point after almost 50 games. We’re a long way from 50 games right now. You just have to keep playing. You’re going to go through tough stretches. Nobody here thinks the sky is falling.”
Going into Tuesday’s series opener against the defending American League champion Blue Jays, you couldn’t blame anyone for looking up at the sky, just to make sure. Sunday’s loss was the Brewers’ fifth in a row, and while five-game losing streaks happen to the best of teams, one hadn’t happened here since June 2023, when Pat Murphy was still Milwaukee’s bench coach.
Now that he’s manager, it was Murphy’s job to explain to a room of reporters how the Brewers are supposed to carry on.
“It’s unfortunate, guys,” Murphy said. “We’ve had a lot of adversity early. We’ve faced this before, but it just seems different in terms of how it’s kind of piled on us. The pitching is a little concerning, too, because we have such a young group. It’s all part of it.”
Yes, the pitching. Velocity is down across the board for the Brewers’ top relievers who logged such high-stress innings all the way through the NLCS last year. One of them, left-hander Jared Koenig, is on the 15-day IL with a UCL sprain. One of the few starters with any experience, Quinn Priester, is on the IL recovering from right thoracic outlet syndrome. Another, left-hander Kyle Harrison, is questionable to make his next start because of a sore left knee and a sore wrist from an awkward play at first base to begin his last outing.
But the Brewers’ chief concern going into the Blue Jays series was finding ways to score runs with so many of their top hitters on the shelf. Yelich led the team in batting average (.314) through 15 games, was tied for second with 10 RBIs and was third among Milwaukee’s regulars with an .826 OPS.
His absence is on top of the Brewers being without Chourio, the 22-year-old budding star coming off consecutive 20-20 seasons to begin his Major League career, and Vaughn, the Brewers’ top right-handed power threat.
“Here we are. Deal with it,” Murphy said. “There’s a lot to be learned during this time. A lot to be revealed. So, that’s what we are going to do.”
It was not all doom and gloom on Tuesday. Chourio and Vaughn were both out on the field doing agility work while waiting for their hands to heal. Chourio will travel with the Brewers on their next road trip to Miami and Detroit, and he and Vaughn are both expected to begin swinging the bat by the end of this week. If those exercises go well, they could begin hitting at the start of the subsequent homestand. Then they would ramp up for rehab assignments.
In the meantime, how are hitters supposed to play free when they have new faces all around them?
“I think you bond together even more,” Murphy said. “You’re more mindful of, ‘I’m going to get the runner over,’ or, ‘I’m going to do my job and not try to do too much.’ When you talk about people stepping up, you don’t step up and replace Yelich. You don’t step up and replace Jackson Chourio, that dynamic player who can do so much, who can get to 102 mph up here [at his eyes], that can foul off a nasty 88 mph slider over here.
“You might be able to do those things, but you can do your part and have productive ABs or move runners, drive a guy in, or have a concrete plan at the plate that allows you to be successful at the plate and move your team forward. And keep your attitude great. If you’re 0-for-3 with three ‘punch.’ your fourth AB is a better AB, you know?”
That’s the challenge for the Brewers in the coming weeks.
There’s no choice other than to accept it, because the games will keep coming.
“No one’s going to feel bad for us,” Yelich said. “You have to navigate injuries, and difficult parts of the season. You know, the guys will be all right. You just have to hold it down.”