The American Family Field crowd was as loud as it had been all night in the seventh inning of the Brewers’ 7-4 win over the Pirates on Friday.
The score was knotted up at two. Milwaukee pinch-hitter Daniel Robertson and first baseman Daniel Vogelbach had sandwiched walks around third baseman Luis Urías’ one-out single. The stage was then set for Brewers star left fielder Christian Yelich to blow the roof off the stadium.
“I think the situation got the crowd going, for sure, with the bases loaded and Yelich up,” manager Craig Counsell said. “So, it was the situation that did it and the at-bats before that got us to that situation. The crowd definitely got into it for Yelich’s at-bat.”
It wasn’t “Christian Yelich 40 Home Run Bobblehead Day”, but he still gave the crowd something to cheer for. After working a 3-1 count against Pittsburgh reliever Clay Holmes, Yelich took a sinker over the middle of the plate and smoked a grounder up the middle, driving in both Robertson and Urías and putting Milwaukee up to stay.
It was the first ball any Brewers batter hit Friday night that had an exit velocity of at least 100 mph, but Yelich was sprinting out of the gate and managed to slide into second base for a double.
“Definitely a hustle double, for sure,” Counsell said. “Good baserunning, and out of the box you could see what he was thinking.”
“It’s really good,” catcher Omar Narváez said. “We all know how hard he works to be as good as he is. Right now, hopefully, he keeps doing what he’s doing because he deserves it. And I think he’s gonna keep doing it. I mean, he’s a great guy. He’s a hard worker. A lot of good things are gonna come up for him, keep going good for him.”
The hit also highlighted a five-run bottom of the seventh that saw three straight hitters walked with the bases loaded, with six total walks in the inning, tying a franchise record. It was the third time in team history that Milwaukee batters walked six times in a single inning, with the other two occurrences coming in the third inning against Toronto on May 19, 1977, and in the fifth inning against San Francisco on Sept. 21, 2006.
“I thought we had a couple really good at-bats,” Counsell said. “Robertson had a good at-bat to walk. [Urías] got a hit off a tough righty. Vogey had a really good at-bat, then [Holmes] started falling behind a little bit. Fell behind to Yeli, and we just kind of moved the line.”
But despite the Brewers’ record-tying patience at the plate, the highlight of the inning came from Yelich’s bat.
Yelich still hasn’t reached the highs of his 2018 or ‘19 seasons, the former in which he was named the National League Most Valuable Player, the latter in which he posted 44 homers and 30 stolen bases.
He’s had two separate stints on the 10-day injured list this season (separated by a single-day cameo on May 3), and after returning for the second time, his average dropped from .353 to .234 heading into the series opener against the Pirates. It hasn’t been smooth sailing for Yelich in his ninth year in the big leagues, and even on Friday, three of his four at-bats ended in two strikeouts and a fly out.
But hits like the one he had in the seventh — a go-ahead knock that made the crowd go wild — can help make working through the struggles a bit easier.
“Yeli’s used to doing that, man. He’s our guy,” said starter Brandon Woodruff, who earned the win and improved to 5-2. “What happened in ’18 and ’19 is no accident. This guy’s one of the best players on the planet, and he hasn’t forgotten how to hit. It’s a long year, man, and he’s always the guy who’s gonna get pitched the toughest. You’ve got to give credit to Yeli. He came up in a big spot and got a ball through, and, hopefully, that keeps him going.”
