MILWAUKEE – After missing the start of this season with a fractured left hand, Jackson Chourio is back to hitting with authority for the Brewers.
Chourio’s second multi-homer performance in the last nine games came in a 9-8 loss to the Phillies on Saturday at American Family Field, where a second straight sellout crowd was treated to some late-inning thrills much different than the final outs of Jacob Misiorowski’s complete-game shutout in the series opener.
This time the drama was created by the Brewers’ offense, which trimmed a five-run deficit at the seventh inning stretch to a one-run deficit by the end of the eighth, only to come up just short on a night Milwaukee pitchers surrendered 17 hits – 16 more than Misiorowski the night before.
“I think we have a really good group here and we’re able to do the little things,” Chourio said. “I think things are going to go our way.”
He was the key to keeping things interesting on Saturday, with four RBIs on three hits, including his seventh and eighth home runs of the year. The Brewers pulled into a 3-3 tie after Chourio’s fifth-inning solo shot, fell way behind when Philadelphia jumped all over Brewers starter Shane Drohan and reliever Chad Patrick for six straight hits and five runs to open the sixth inning, then climbed back starting with Chourio’s two-run homer in the seventh, which somehow sailed out to center field even though José Alvarado’s cutter was off the plate and moving in on Chourio’s hands. Then the Brewers got within a run on Chourio’s RBI single in Milwaukee’s three-run eighth.
The homer gave the 22-year-old Brewers outfielder four home runs over the past four games and six home runs in June, tying him for the moment with the Athletics’ Nick Kurtz for most in the Majors this month.
“His hands are so fast, that when he tries to do less, he does more,” said Daniel Vogelbach, one of the Brewers’ trio of hitting coaches. “I always say slow is fast and fast is slow for him. When his moves are small and he sees the ball, his hands are lightning. You feel like there’s nothing in the zone he can’t hit.”
Said manager Pat Murphy: “He missed the first month, and now his strike-ball [awareness] is back to being elite. That’s what happens when you wait for a strike.”
That portends well for the Brewers, who remain in the bottom third of the Major Leagues in home runs but are climbing since the return of Chourio, Christian Yelich and Andrew Vaughn from early-season injuries.
Chourio suffered a fracture at the base of his left middle finger when he was hit by a pitch while playing a World Baseball Classic tune-up for Team Venezuela, though the extent of the injury did not become clear until the morning of Opening Day. He landed on the injured list and didn’t return to the Brewers until the 34th game of the regular season, then didn’t hit his second home run until his 21st game played.
But since then, Chourio has been on a tear, with seven home runs and four doubles in his last 14 games.
“I’m trying to go out there and play my same game,” he said. “I think it’s a question of, there’s different moments in a game where I try to be as disciplined as possible, and then there’s other moments when I go up there looking to make the best contact that I can. I think the game dictates some different things.”
The game got away with Patrick on the mound, struggling for the second straight outing. He had 0.42 ERA in 10 appearances (one start) since moving to a bullpen role in early May before running into trouble on Thursday in Las Vegas against the Athletics and again in relief of Drohan on Saturday. Between those two outings, Patrick surrendered hits to eight straight batters before recording an out, and was charged with seven earned runs in all.
What happened?
“I talked to him a little bit in the dugout and he’s not exactly sure,” Murphy said. “But he’s been great for us. You’ve seen it in the playoffs, and you saw it [in Patrick’s first appearance in the last series] against the A’s in Vegas. It’s just his last two appearances haven’t been the same. Some of it is, once you get clocked once, it’s tough coming back.”
The same goes for an offense facing a five-run deficit, but the Brewers made it close. They had the tying run in scoring position and the go-ahead run on base in the eighth after Chourio’s base hit made it a 9-8 game, but Brice Turang struck out and William Contreras popped out to Bryce Harper in foul ground to end the threat as Phillies reliever Brad Keller pushed past 30 pitches in the inning.
“You give up 17 hits, you’re not going to win it, usually,” Murphy said.