'Healthy' Yelich heats up, sparks series win

Christian Yelich stung an RBI single in the sixth inning on Sunday afternoon for his first hit since coming off the injured list, and he was just getting warmed up.

On a day full of the tough plate appearances and loud contact the Brewers had been longing to see from their superstar left fielder, Yelich reached safely three times and capped a 9-4 win over the Reds at Great American Ball Park by hitting his first home run of 2021, a towering solo shot in the ninth inning that sailed a Statcast-projected 440 feet to the seats in center field.

Best of all, Yelich said he feels healthy five games into his return from more than a month spent nursing a lower back injury. He wasn’t the only hitter with something to celebrate. Willy Adames tallied his first Brewers RBIs, Avisaíl García hit his team-leading seventh home run and Kolten Wong was a homer shy of the cycle as Milwaukee got a series victory after dropping each of its previous three series and four of five.

It’s a good time to get the bats going. The Brewers have Brandon Woodruff and Corbin Burnes scheduled to start the first two of a big four-game series against the National League-leading Padres starting on Monday at American Family Field.

For Yelich, is it a relief to feel good again?

“I mean, that's a big part of the battle, just to be able to go and be out there,” he said. “It's really hard playing baseball when you have to start and stop and take six-week breaks, and try and start up again, just have to sit and watch and not be able to contribute. It sucked, frankly. It hasn't been a great time. But hopefully that's behind us and I can continue to be out there more regularly, and try and help contribute to this team.”

Manager Craig Counsell declined to say whether the schedule the sides have worked out has Yelich in the lineup on Monday night. Whenever he appears next, Yelich will be playing his first games at home since the opening series against the Twins. He tweaked his lower back at the end of the Brewers’ opening road trip and spent most of the next month on the injured list, save for a one-game appearance at Philadelphia on May 3, when Yelich’s back declined to cooperate.

So, he was back on the 10-day IL for two more weeks and some new treatment methods, which led to a rehabilitation assignment at Triple-A Nashville, which led to a return to Milwaukee’s lineup as the designated hitter on Tuesday in Kansas City. In his first four games back with the big club before Sunday, Yelich was hitless in 11 at-bats with three walks and seven strikeouts.

Then came Sunday’s breakthrough.

"That's huge," Wong said. “Obviously we've been coming up on a tough little stretch, so to have him kind of, as our leader, come in and have some good ABs, we know how good he can be. So it's huge for us. Huge for morale. The team, we're just excited."

Said Counsell: “He’s on his way, and more importantly, we’re having positive health results as we go forward. There’s going to be some more scheduled off-days this week but we’re on a good track.”

Yelich’s opening at-bat offered clues that it would be a productive day. Still seeking his first hit off the IL, he hit a baseball about as hard as one can hit it in the first inning against Reds right-hander Luis Castillo. Statcast clocked the exit velocity at 114.9 mph, and batted balls with a similar profile are a hit 85 percent of the time.

For Yelich, it was just a loud out, as Reds right fielder Nick Castellanos hauled in the line drive.

“I was still trying to find it,” Yelich said, “and I guess that was a step in the right direction.”

But the Brewers kept the inning going with two outs for Travis Shaw’s run-scoring walk -- a critical plate appearance in the game, as Counsell saw it -- and Adames’ bloop, two-run single for a 3-0 lead.

The exit velocity? It was 76.3 mph.

The Brewers were on their way to a win.

Yelich also walked and scored in the third inning and singled home a run in the sixth before homering on a 3-0 fastball down the middle from Reds reliever Brad Brach in the ninth, extending the lead to 9-2.

“I don't think I've swung 3-0 very often in my career. Maybe five or six times,” Yelich said. “But just the way baseball is now, you take a 3-0 fastball right down the middle, then they throw you a 3-1 split and you roll it over to second base, and you're like, 'Well, I could have just figured that out the pitch before. Like, what did we accomplish there?'

“So, it's not an auto-swing by any means but it's kind of one of those counts in baseball now where you have to be more aware and maybe it's not just a ‘shut it down and take a strike’ time anymore.”

Asked whether he felt like he had his timing back, Yelich said, “I guess we’ll have to wait and see. Baseball is a hard game.”