Wong tallies 3 hits, including HR, in return

Kolten Wong said it was “special” to watch the banged-up Brewers sweep the Padres in San Diego without four lineup regulars for most of the series. Now, he’s ready to help.

Wong homered and tallied three hits as a bright spot in Friday’s 15-2 loss to the Cubs at Wrigley Field after he was reinstated from the 10-day injured list with a strained left oblique. To open a roster spot for Wong’s return to the top of the lineup, the Brewers placed utility man Jace Peterson, coming off a two-homer series in San Diego, on the 10-day IL with a left thumb injury that’s nagged him since Spring Training.

“To have all of us out,” said Wong referring to IL stints for himself, Christian Yelich and Lorenzo Cain, plus a calf injury that sidelined Luis Urías for most of the San Diego series, “and the guys still doing their thing, it just shows you how much depth we have on our team, how good our team can be regardless of who’s out at the time. I think we’re very confident in who we have.”

Second base is one area with plenty of room for improvement, however. The Brewers won eight of their 11 games while Wong was on the IL, but got little production at the position beyond Peterson’s home runs. Brewers second basemen entered Friday’s game last in the Majors with a 49 wRC+ and a .497 OPS, and next to last at -0.2 fWAR. Much of that is attributable to Wong’s own slow start; he entered Friday with two singles in 19 at-bats. He’d also walked five times, so his on-base percentage was a solid .346 in that tiny sample.

Healthy again, Wong wasted no time in trying to correct those numbers. After singles in his first two at-bats, Wong paired with hot-hitting Billy McKinney on the Brewers’ first back-to-back home runs this season in the sixth.

“That's a great sign, to come off feeling good,” Brewers manager Craig Counsell said. “We didn't do a rehab assignment or anything like that, so it's great to show up and have some success and feel good about where you're at right away.”

“It was kind of like a high oblique, maybe a super low lat strain, one of those things where we were trying to figure out what was the best way to go,” Wong said. “It was probably about three days or so [before] today where I felt really good, things started to feel better. I would take full swings, even did some check swings to see how that would hold up and it felt great, so I’m excited to get back out there.”

Wong has battled oblique injuries before, but never on his left side. The timing of his injury was particularly painful; it happened during his emotional homecoming in St. Louis, where Wong wiped away tears while taking a walk from his friend Adam Wainwright to start the game. In a subsequent at-bat, he felt his oblique grab and had to exit.

“Swinging was definitely the highest priority, making sure I can swing at full percentage without feeling like I was holding anything back,” he said. "When we were taking BP in the cage, I started off slow, but once I was right around that three-day mark [to go], I started ramping it up big time and taking full swings and even standing in in some bullpens and trying to have like a check swing or trying to do things to be ready.”

His double-play partner was back as well. Urías returned to the lineup Friday, going 0-for-4, after the Brewers took a cautious approach Tuesday and Wednesday with a right calf injury that he suffered Monday night in his own homecoming in San Diego.

Yelich needs more time
Saturday marks the first day that Yelich is eligible for reinstatement from the IL, but the Brewers plan to give him a bit more time, Counsell indicated. Yelich has not played since April 11 because of a recurrence of low back stiffness, an issue that occasionally has dogged him in recent years.

“He won’t hit on the field [Friday], he’ll hit in the cage,” Counsell said Friday morning. “You’ll see him on the field [for defensive work]. He won’t be active tomorrow.”

Peterson’s thumb is nagging
Peterson has been dealing with a nerve issue in his left thumb since Spring Training, and he even traveled to Los Angeles just before Opening Day to undergo a cryotherapy procedure that has helped Ryan Braun and Cain in recent years. But Peterson continues to experience discomfort.

“It’s never really gone away. I think that’s been the issue,” Counsell said. “We’re hoping that maybe we can eliminate it here or at least quiet it down. We’ve been through these things with other players, and the thumb is just one that if you’re hitting every day it never really gets better.

Credit to Peterson for producing in San Diego despite pain. He homered off the bench in a 6-0 win on Tuesday and added two more hits including a home run while playing all nine innings at second base in Wednesday’s 4-2 win.

“Jace is a tough kid,” Counsell said. “In his time here, including last year, he’s always delivered exactly what we needed from him. He’s stable and he does his job. That’s the reason we like having Jace around.”

Last call
• Friday began a stretch of 17 straight game days for the Brewers, their first extended test after enjoying off-days in each of the first four weeks of the regular season. It will be a test of the bullpen as much as anything, Counsell said.

• Top Brewers prospect Garrett Mitchell will play his first professional games with the Class A Advanced Wisconsin Timber Rattlers, that club announced Thursday while the Brewers were off. Mitchell, whom the Brewers drafted 20th overall last year, was denied a Minor League season because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but he excelled in big league camp this spring, so the organization decided to push him. The Timber Rattlers are moving up a level this year as part of MLB’s realignment of the Minor Leagues.

• Individual tickets for May games at American Family Field went on sale Friday morning, with the 25 percent capacity limit still in place.