Adames day to day with left quad discomfort

MILWAUKEE -- The Brewers are taking no chances with Willy Adames, the shortstop and spark plug for the National League Central leaders.

After dealing with nagging discomfort in his left quadriceps for the past week or so, Adames departed the team’s 7-4 win over the Reds as a precaution on Tuesday after aggravating the issue in the first inning.

Adames sparked a Brewers scoring rally with a one-out double, but looked compromised getting to second base. He moved up on Christian Yelich’s single before scoring on Avisaíl García’s sacrifice fly, then left the game.

“Willy’s been battling the quad, really since St. Louis,” said Brewers manager Craig Counsell, referring to the final stop on a road trip last Tuesday through Thursday. “It’s been playable. It’s not serious, but it’s enough where it’s just coming up every day and it’s an issue every day.

“We were hopeful that the off-day [Monday] would quiet it down. After his first at-bat, he didn’t even have to run that hard and he felt it a little bit, and so we were going to be cautious with him and we got him out of there.”

Counsell said Adames would be absent from the lineup when the series continues on Wednesday night. Luis Urías is the Brewers’ primary backup at shortstop.

“We’re on the cautious side,” Counsell said. “He’s played through it so far, but it’s just to the point where it’s not worth taking the risk on it.”

The Brewers acquired Adames from the Rays on May 22 and made him a fixture of their lineup. Including Tuesday, he’d started all but three of the Brewers’ 82 games since his arrival, and appeared in all but one of those games. He’s slashing .295/.379/.547 with 17 home runs in a Brewers uniform and leads the Brewers at 3.6 fWAR.

Adames is the third Brewers position player to leave a game on this homestand. Tyrone Taylor strained his right oblique on Friday against the Nationals and Eduardo Escobar strained his right hamstring on Sunday. Both of those players landed on the 10-day injured list.