‘It’s all deserved’: Yelich notches 1st ASG start

MILWAUKEE -- It was about a year ago that Christian Yelich said something that surprised Brewers manager Craig Counsell. Yelich had just made his first National League All-Star team as a reserve, so he was having a solid season. And yet he told Counsell that he wasn’t happy at all with the way he was performing.

“It was just a very ‘Christian’ conversation about how he sees things and how much he expects of himself,” Counsell said. “I think we were all thrilled with what he was doing the first half and thought he had a really good first half. I can’t tell you I had heard him really talk like that before.

“But he had clearly committed in his head to something, and believed something, and knew it was really close. And that’s pretty cool.”

A year later, that belief has come to fruition. Yelich, the reigning NL MVP Award winner and the Major League leader with 29 home runs, on Thursday not only earned a chance to start the All-Star Game, he was the NL’s overall leader in votes.

• Complete 2019 MLB All-Star Game starting lineups

He will be the first Brewers player to start the Midsummer Classic in five years, since Carlos Gomez, Jonathan Lucroy and Aramis Ramirez all were in the NL’s starting lineup in Minneapolis in 2014.

The 2019 All-Star Game presented by Mastercard will be played on Tuesday, July 9, at Progressive Field in Cleveland. It will be televised nationally by FOX Sports; in Canada by Rogers Sportsnet and RDS; and worldwide by partners in more than 180 countries. FOX Deportes will provide Spanish-language coverage in the United States, while ESPN Radio and ESPN Radio Deportes will provide exclusive national radio coverage. MLB Network, MLB.com and SiriusXM also will provide comprehensive All-Star Week coverage.

“You never expect to lead the entire National League in votes, but it's really cool and I’m definitely excited to be a part of the All-Star Game,” Yelich said. “I'm definitely looking forward to getting to Cleveland and having some fun.”

As for that conversation with his manager a year ago, Yelich said, “There was more there for me as a player, and I wasn't just satisfied making the All-Star team. You can always get better. That's not just for the All-Star Game, that's my mindset all the time; you can always get better, you can always improve. But it's definitely been a crazy 12 months, to put it lightly.”

Yelich has been the best hitter in baseball over the past calendar year, with a .345 average, 54 home runs and a slugging percentage north of .700 -- nearly 100 points better than runner-up Mike Trout. After his second-half surge helped carry the Brewers to the NL Central crown and made Yelich the fourth different league MVP in Brewers history (Rollie Fingers in 1981, Robin Yount in 1982 and 1989 and Ryan Braun in 2011), the question was whether Yelich, a very good player for the Marlins who slugged his way to stardom after a trade to hitter-friendly Miller Park, could repeat.

Yelich used those questions as fuel.

“That was a big focus coming into this year,” he said. “In spring, there were a lot of questions if I could do it again, was it a fluke, am I a good player? That stuff kind of lights a fire in me and [ticks] me off. I didn't know how the year was going to go, but I wasn't going to look back on last year and think anything was guaranteed. Just because you're an MVP the previous year, you're not going to just walk through the next year and everything was going to be fine. There was a drive and intensity there for myself and for my teammates.”

Yelich is hoping for company in Cleveland. Mike Moustakas was a finalist to start the All-Star Game at second base, and Yasmani Grandal was a finalist at catcher. Neither won the vote, but could still make the team as reserves. Brewers reliever Josh Hader also has a good chance to make a second straight NL All-Star team.

The reserves are determined through a combination of “Player Ballot” choices and selections made by the Commissioner’s Office. All-Star pitchers and reserves will be announced on Sunday at 4:30 p.m. CT on ESPN.

But Yelich will get to start.

“It’s all deserved,” said Counsell. “He’s continued what won him the MVP, and he’s bettered it, really. He’s had a great first half. There’s no more deserving starter, and it’s cool the fans recognized that from a player in Milwaukee. That’s something we should be proud of.”