Yelich's 1st 'home' run in '21 sends Crew to W

MILWAUKEE -- Six hundred and thirty six days.

That’s how long it had been since Brewers fans rose from their seats in this ballpark and cheered a Christian Yelich home run. A crowd of 12,392 got to do it again Thursday, when Yelich hit a laser beam over the right-field wall for a three-run homer in a 7-4 win over the D-backs at American Family Field.

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“You can suck for a while and then you never know when you're going to turn, so you’ve just got to keep plugging and see what happens,” Yelich said. “It's kind of what we did."

The last time he circled the bases here in front of real, live fans -- sorry, cardboard cutouts -- the place was called Miller Park. Yelich hit a go-ahead, three-run home run in a Sept. 6, 2019, win over the Cubs that started the winning spree that sent Milwaukee to the National League Wild Card Game. Things haven’t been quite the same for Yelich since then.

But this has been a week of fresh starts. Earlier on this homestand, Yelich changed his walk-up tune. On Thursday, he swung a blonde Louisville Slugger bat instead of the black lumber he’s always used with the Brewers, and in his second at-bat, four batters after Jackie Bradley Jr.’s home run leading off the third inning gave the Brewers a 1-0 lead, Yelich connected with a first-pitch changeup from D-backs starter Jon Duplantier and sent it 107.9 mph off the bat, per Statcast. It flew just far enough to clear the right-field fence to make it 4-0.

Luis Urías, Jackie Bradley Jr. and Avisaíl García also homered in the Brewers’ sixth victory in their last seven games, and the baseball is starting to fly here. After the Brewers hit five home runs in a loss to the Tigers on Tuesday, they have their first back-to-back home games with at least four homers since 1983.

For Yelich, it was a moment like so many he produced in 2018 and ‘19. But it had been a minute.

Four days after that home run against the Cubs in 2019, he fouled a pitch off his right knee in Miami and missed the rest of the ‘19 season. Yelich signed a mega-contract extension with the Brewers the following March, but was one of the stars who saw his production plummet while hitting in empty stadiums during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season. In 2021, Yelich has been hampered by a lower back strain that required two stints on the injured list and sidelined him for all but one day in a five-week span from mid-April to early May.

He entered Thursday 6-for-38 since coming off the IL on May 18. His only other home run in 2021 came in the ninth inning of a road win at Cincinnati on May 23. Slowly, the Brewers have eased Yelich back into a regular schedule while monitoring his health, a process that will continue -- especially when the Brewers enter a stretch of 33 games in 34 days following their next off-day on Monday.

“None of us want to have to push stop again, and so pushing pause for a day or two is way more advantageous and a better spot to be than having to push stop,” Brewers manager Craig Counsell said. “And Yeli’s on board with that and completely gets that.”

He’s still one of the Brewers’ most productive hitters. Yelich’s on-base percentage is .391. His weighted runs created plus, a good measure of offensive production that accounts for ballpark effects, is 120, meaning he’s 20 percent better than the average hitter this season. That puts Yelich ahead of García, who has 11 home runs.

But when he was asked Thursday about where he’s at in terms of his timing, Yelich responded with a reference to equine excrement.

In other words, it’s a work in progress.

“I think I've gotten opportunities, I just haven't really taken advantage of them for a number of reasons,” he said. “We've got a long way to go in the season, still. Everybody's so used to what happened last year with the 60 games and how quick it all went by, you don't realize we've still got four months left to play here. … Stay the course, stay with your processes as players, as teams. At the end of the year, hopefully you're in a spot where everybody's pretty happy.”

As for the blonde bat?

"They've been here for like a week or two. I've been messing around with them,” Yelich said. “I broke one [of his black bats] the other night and [Brewers equipment manager Jason Shawger] talked me into using them today. I was like, 'All right.'

“I'm not really superstitious about what bat I use. I just took that one up there and it paid off tonight. Credit to Shawger."