Grateful Hiura makes surprise return to Crew

ST. LOUIS -- Keston Hiura earned a surprise stint in the big leagues to finish what has been a rough season, but the best news had nothing to do with baseball. Hiura reported that his mom, Janice, who had been battling a form of lymphoma, is officially in remission and has completed chemotherapy and related treatments.

Here’s more good news: The Brewers’ next stop is Los Angeles, essentially his hometown, and the hope is that Janice can attend some of the games.

“She’s really happy,” Hiura said. “It’s definitely been a different year than most, but when you put everything in perspective [on the baseball field], winning those small battles and understanding you’re still in this position to help the team win and help the team compete in the postseason, you just enjoy every single day.”

Hiura described his takeaway from 2021 as “understanding and learning from those failures, understanding and learning what kind of person and player I am.”

As of Thursday morning, he was batting .166 in the big leagues with a 53 wRC+ and a 39.4 percent strikeout rate. Sent on three different occasions to the Minors, including in July when he came down with COVID-19 and was sidelined for several weeks, Hiura slashed .256/.374/.465 at Triple-A Nashville this season. But even there, he struggled with contact, striking out at a 33.5 percent clip.

Hiura still has Minor League options and will not qualify for arbitration until after the 2022 season, so it’s likely he will be back with the Brewers next year. But with second baseman Kolten Wong signed for another year and Hiura coming off a second consecutive season with too much swing and miss, his role is unclear.

Hiura gets to finish this season in the Majors. That’s a bonus.

“Definitely,” Hiura said. “The goal is always to be here, play here, help the team win. Obviously, you wish you could be here the whole year, but it’s understanding those lessons that happened throughout the year. You become a better person and player because of it.”

Last call
• Right-hander Colin Rea, called up to the Majors on Wednesday after the Brewers placed Devin Williams on the 10-day IL with a fractured right hand, would be the 61st player to get in a game for Milwaukee. His journey was the longest of all of them, having begun the season pitching in Japan, and he would have stayed there longer than his three months had his third daughter not been born early and required his attention at home in the U.S.

“They sleep, eat and breathe baseball [in Japan],” said Rea, who came home with a mechanical adjustment that allowed him to reduce the stress on his arm. “They practice every day, they work hard, they are very intelligent about the game.”

• By winning its 50th road game on Wednesday night, Milwaukee became only the 65th team since 1901 to reach that milestone, and the second this season behind the Giants. The record for road victories is 59, a mark shared by the 1906 Cubs and the 2001 Mariners.

“We had a little challenge earlier in the year, of 45 road wins among the coaching staff,” Brewers manager Craig Counsell said. “We passed that a little ways ago but to get to 50, that's a big number on the road. It's not easy to do. I think it’s a sign of our consistency this year that we're able to do good things, home and road.”