Success secret? Yeli tries this before big HR

Christian Yelich put the Wrigley in Wrigley Field during the Brewers’ most nerve-wracking win this season.

Chew on this: The turning point of Friday’s 4-3 win at the Cubs, it turned out, was not Brewers reliever Freddy Peralta escaping a bases-loaded situation in the fifth inning after Brandon Woodruff’s bid for a no-hitter turned for the worse. It was not right fielder Ben Gamel botching a fly ball to make things difficult in the eighth inning or Josh Hader coming in and compounding the problem with a pair of a walks. And it was not Hader, back out for the ninth, finding his slider just in time for a game-ending called Strike 3 against Javier Báez, with Báez representing the winning run.

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No, it was Yelich, the Brewers’ designated hitter, encountering a bucket of bubble gum while he was killing time in the tunnel off the dugout between at-bats.

“I was so terrible up there tonight,” Yelich said. “I was down there in the tunnel getting loose and was like, ‘I’m going to put gum in my mouth and chew that and not think about how [lousy] my at-bats have been.’

“So I stopped thinking about it, and I just swung. I was like, ‘I’m going to swing because I haven’t swung all night and I should probably swing.’ So I swung at a changeup. Homer.”

Yelich wasn’t expecting a first-pitch changeup from Cubs starter Alec Mills -- “I didn’t have much of an idea up there tonight,” Yelich said -- but he got one up in the strike zone where he could drive it.

It represented a quick answer to the Cubs’ own three-run rally moments earlier. Woodruff’s bid for a no-hitter dissolved during a maddening fifth inning that saw the Brewers right-hander throw 32 pitches, record one out, and yield three runs while six consecutive batters reached safely before Peralta took over with the bases loaded.

Peralta got out of that jam with no further damage. Then Yelich stepped to the plate with a sugar rush.

“Gum?” Brewers manager Craig Counsell said. “Well, this is a high-tech organization, guys. We’re coming up with some new and innovative methods.”

For Yelich, it marked another modest step -- he also struck out three times on a 1-for-4 night -- in his return to form following a confounding 1-for-27, 12-strikeout start to his regular season. That was in July. Since the calendar flipped to August, Yelich is a more representative 10-for-37 (.270) with four home runs.

And, yes, a dozen more strikeouts. Friday was his fourth three-strikeout showing in 17 games this season. He had six three-strikeout games all of last season in 130 games.

But Yelich still has his sense of humor.

“What I like about it is he’s being himself,” Counsell said. “You have to be yourself no matter what’s going on. There’s no reason to change who we are. We all deal with adversity and struggles differently. This is Christian just being himself. At the core, he’s a very humble guy who is frustrated by this, but he is still able to poke fun at himself.”

“That’s why he’s the superstar,” Woodruff said. “It’s always one swing away.”

That one swing allowed Woodruff to breathe a sigh of relief. He didn’t allow a Cubs hit until Jason Heyward hit a low and away four-seam fastball for a single with one out in the fifth that Woodruff lamented as poor pitch selection.

David Bote and Jason Kipnis also singled -- Kipnis after a nine-pitch battle -- as the Cubs kept pushing Woodruff’s pitch count higher and higher. Woodruff walked in the go-ahead run, and when Anthony Rizzo hit yet another single for another Cubs run and a 3-1 lead, Counsell went to the bullpen.

“I’m honestly kind of shocked, in a way,” Woodruff said. “How do you go 4 1/3 innings and then get chased in the fifth? It makes no sense.”

Peralta, Devin Williams and Hader combined to bail out the Brewers starter, getting 26 swings and misses over the final 4 2/3 innings, with Yelich reclaiming a lead along the way.

Like first baseman Justin Smoak said the night before, if the sputtering offense can find a way to deliver some runs, the Brewers could be dangerous. Despite offensive output that ranks near the bottom of Major League Baseball, they are 8-10, looking up at the 13-4 Cubs.

“We haven’t really given them much run support this year,” Yelich said. “If we can give them something to work with, we like our chances. We have good starting pitching, good guys at the back end of the bullpen. We got enough tonight.”

Incidentally, the gum gambit didn’t last.

“I tried it in my next at-bat and swung at two balls that would have been Ball 4,” Yelich said. “So, the gum’s out. But it was a nice go-to. We’ll have to think of something else for tomorrow.”