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. The bullpen, meanwhile, looks to be on early-season fumes after logging all of those high-intensity innings last October.
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.”
Some of the 25,143 who filed into American Family Field amid a tornado warning on Tuesday might have looked up at the sky and questioned that. By night’s end the Brewers’ losing streak had stretched to six in excruciating fashion with a 9-7 loss to the Blue Jays in 10 innings.
Closer Trevor Megill absorbed his first blown save of the season in a three-run ninth, only to be let off the hook when the Brewers scored twice in the bottom of the inning to force extras, only to see Grant Anderson surrender three more runs in the 10th to extend Milwaukee’s recent misery.
And while six-game skids happen to the best of teams, Milwaukee hadn’t had one longer than four since a six-game slide in June 2023, when Pat Murphy was still Milwaukee’s bench coach. They must win Wednesday to avoid losing a seventh straight for the first time since an eight-game skid in 2022.
“I know if I do better in two games, we’re in a lot different spot right now,” said Megill, whose troubles on his homestand have Murphy and the coaches contemplating whether to make a change in the ninth inning.
There was no decision on that Tuesday night. Instead, Murphy took pains to praise the things the Brewers did well. Jacob Misiorowski pitched through illness. Jake Bauers (three-run homer) and Gary Sánchez (solo shot) stayed tied for the team lead with five home runs apiece. Brice Turang and Brandon Lockridge delivered the sort of clutch hits in the bottom of the ninth that the Brewers had been missing.
“You see the way we battled back, as decimated as we are with injuries,” Murphy said. “I hurt inside. It doesn’t matter if I hurt inside, what matters is if those guys believe in themselves. What they showed me tonight is there’s a lot of fight in them.”
The pitching is just as big a concern as the decimated lineup. 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.”