Counsell on Yeli: 'We desperately need him'

MILWAUKEE -- The Brewers aren’t hitting, and it’s going to take more than Christian Yelich shaking the worst slump of his career to change that.

Yelich’s 2020 troubles persisted Tuesday with three more strikeouts in a 3-2 loss to the White Sox at Miller Park. While Chicago ran its winning streak to six in a row, Milwaukee’s offensive outage magnified Brandon Woodruff’s misplaced slider, Eric Sogard’s costly error and Devin Williams’ down-the-middle fastball.

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The Brewers, trying to emerge from a weighty weekend during which all three of their games were postponed while the Cardinals tried to contain cases of COVID-19, instead let a lead slip away after the fifth inning in back-to-back losses to the red-hot White Sox. That has happened to Milwaukee in three of its last four games, leaving Yelich & Co. with a 3-5 record and looking up at the 9-2 Cubs in the National League Central.

“You know, this team is deep, and I believe guys are going to pick each other up,” Sogard said. “Everyone goes through slumps. Obviously, Yeli is one of the best hitters in the game and we understand that this is going to happen to anybody. He’s going to turn it around. It’s a time when other guys are going to have to pick him up.”

Yelich is trying to turn it around, with little to show for it so far.

Healthy again after missing the end of 2019 with a right knee injury, and armed with a new, nine-year contract, Yelich is 3-for-34 with 16 strikeouts to begin the regular season, including 0-for-12 with seven strikeouts with runners in scoring position. In going 0-for-3 with a walk and three strikeouts on Tuesday, Yelich saw 22 pitches, 12 of which he took for balls. Throughout his funk, he has not been swinging at bad pitches.

But he is also not making loud contact at the moment. Of the 10 strikes, he looked at three, including a pair of called third strikes, each with a runner in scoring positon. Of the seven pitches Yelich offered at, six were swings and misses.

His only contact was a foul ball on Lucas Giolito's first pitch of the fourth inning.

“He's struggling. I don't think there's any way else to say it. He's struggling,” Brewers manager Craig Counsell said. “He's probably worked as hard as you could want him to work. He shouldn't work any harder because that's not going to solve it. He's working as hard as he can, he just hasn't solved it yet.

“It hasn't looked great, but he's a great, great player. We'll continue to support him, we'll continue to encourage him. We all understand that when anybody goes through this, it's not going to look good, it's not going to feel good and it hurts to go through this. We know who he is. We know he's a great player and we know he's going to come out of it. We'll continue to work with him, we'll continue to support him because we need him.

“We desperately need him.”

Yelich’s slump is magnified because other expected contributors have yet to consistently contribute -- Justin Smoak and Omar Narváez each own an OPS just north of .500 -- and because the Brewers began the week missing two mainstays. Lorenzo Cain elected on Saturday not to play the remainder of this season due to COVID-19 concerns, while Ryan Braun was placed on the 10-day injured list Sunday with an infected finger.

With Cain out, it was up to Avisaíl García to take over in center field, and Ben Gamel to absorb the extra at-bats. Both players made a positive impact on Tuesday night.

García fired a 91.8 mph throw to third base for an outfield assist that likely saved a run in the third inning, and according to Statcast, represented the Brewers’ hardest tracked outfield assist since Brett Phillips famously fired a 104.7 mph seed in 2017. García’s was one of two defensive gems behind Woodruff; in the fifth inning, second baseman Keston Hiura made a spectacular diving stop to deny Yoán Moncada a run-scoring hit, and threw him out at first base.

In the bottom of that inning, Gamel snapped a scoreless tie by hitting a two-run home run, his second of the season, giving him a team-best seven RBIs in the early going -- and giving the Brewers a 2-0 lead. But Woodruff and Williams let it slip away. In the sixth, Eloy Jiménez smashed a Woodruff slider for a game-tying two-run home run. In the seventh, after Sogard’s two-base error put Williams in a tough position to start the inning, Williams fired a wild pitch, then missed with a fastball to José Abreu, who laced it into left field for the go-ahead hit.

“Tonight was just a battle,” Woodruff said. “They’re a good lineup -- just a mix of some veterans that know what they’re doing. They’re a good team.”

The Brewers got extra life in the bottom of the ninth when White Sox closer Alex Colomé whiffed on Ryon Healy’s two-out bouncer, and Narváez followed with a hit that put the potential winning run on base.

Gamel had the last shot, batting with the tying run at third and the winning run at second, but he bounced out to first base to end the game. As a team, the Brewers are batting .212 so far.

“We’re putting stuff together, but just not enough,” Sogard said. “We were fighting hard tonight. We got the winning run on second base. So we were continuing to fight. It’s early. Things will get rolling.”