Christian Yelich has spent a lot of October as a postseason afterthought, but the Brewers are getting something different from him right now.
Through the first two games of the NLDS, Yelich has reached base three times and, more importantly, has looked locked in pitch by pitch. That matters because his October track record has been thin. Entering this postseason, he was a career .218/.347/.317 hitter in the playoffs with an 84 OPS+, and he had gone 74 at-bats without driving in a run since his home run in Game 7 of the 2018 NLCS.
That’s not a massive body of work - just 121 postseason plate appearances - but the concerns around Yelich were not limited to October. He arrived in the NLDS coming off his worst regular season, a year in which he hit .235/.315/.378 with a 91 wRC+ and, at times, his swing looked stiffer and less adaptable.
Even so, the bat hasn’t vanished. His bat speed is nearly unchanged from last season, and he still shows strong strike-zone judgment, posting the third-lowest chase rate among Milwaukee hitters with at least 400 plate appearances. Pitches on the inner third gave him trouble this year, but when he gets something over the middle or out over the outer third, he can still do damage.
That has shown up early in this series. Yelich has been disciplined without becoming passive, laying off plenty of pitches outside the zone - including several close ones just off the outside corner. Some of his best takes came during his ninth-inning walk on Sunday, the first of three walks against Mason Miller in Milwaukee’s walk-off rally against one of baseball’s best closers.
And when he has swung, it has looked right. He’s gone after nearly every pitch in the zone that hasn’t been on the corner, and the results have been encouraging. Yelich has put five balls in play so far, and three of them were hit hard.
Jackson Chourio and William Contreras have grabbed the biggest headlines in the series, but Yelich has quietly put together some of the Brewers’ best at-bats. He snapped Michael King’s perfect game with a fifth-inning double in Game 2, then came around to score Milwaukee’s first run on Sal Frelick’s single.
A few innings later, he started to turn the tide against Miller. He might have helped ignite an earlier seventh-inning rally if Jackson Merrill hadn’t made a leaping catch near the center-field wall.
The sample is tiny, so nothing is guaranteed to carry forward. Still, after the way his regular season went, there was a reasonable case that Yelich wasn’t one of the Brewers’ nine best options to start in a playoff lineup. Instead, the process has looked crisp, and he’s starting to resemble the best version of himself at this point in his career.
Milwaukee named Yelich the first captain in franchise history during the final weekend of the regular season, but the offensive burden now sits more with Chourio, Contreras, Brice Turang and the rest of the younger, more explosive bats. That could give Yelich the room he needs. He can still deepen the lineup as a steady contributor in the lower half, and these first two games of the NLDS suggest this October may be different for the Brewers - and maybe for Yelich, too.
In Other News...
William Contreras Just Put Brewers Fans On Notice About His Future
William Contreras has spent the NLDS reminding everyone why he has become such an important piece of the Brewers lineup, delivering big home runs in Games 1 and 3 against the Padres while continuing the steady work that has made him a fixture in Milwaukee since arriving in 2022. Durability has been part of the appeal, too, with Contreras topping 140 games in each season he has worn a Brewers uniform, giving the club a middle-of-the-order bat it can trust through the grind of a long year.
Now the attention shifts beyond October, because Contreras has already opened the door to a bigger question about what comes next. In a recent interview, he said he is scheduled to be a free agent after the 2027 season unless he signs an extension, and he acknowledged some uncertainty about whether his future will remain in Milwaukee. For a Brewers team that values stability and impact performers, that kind of long-term uncertainty is the sort of storyline that can linger well past the final out of this playoff run. [Read more 🡒]
Brewers Just Got A Game 3 Opening Padres Fans Hate
The Padres are making an unexpected lineup change for Game 3 of the NLDS, going into Milwaukee without Gavin Sheets in the starting nine because of a stiff neck. Sheets is still available off the bench, but Samad Taylor moves into the batting order as San Diego tries to extend its season against a Brewers club that has already put the pressure squarely on the visitors.
Nick Pivetta gets the ball for San Diego in a must-win game, his second postseason start since returning from injury. For Milwaukee, the tweak adds another layer to a night already shaped by urgency, with the Brewers needing only to stay steady against a Padres team that has had to adjust on the fly just to keep its lineup intact. [Read more 🡒]
Pat Murphy's Game 4 Pitching Choice Could Decide The Brewers' Season
With their season hanging by a thread, the Brewers are already looking ahead to Game 4 of the National League Division Series, where Pat Murphy will have to make one of the biggest pitching decisions of the year. Murphy has not announced a starter, but the discussion is centered on Robert Gasser and Chad Patrick, two arms who could be asked to help keep Milwaukee alive after losses in the first three games.
Gasser has been trending in the right direction lately, while Patrick has generally been effective aside from one rough outing late in the season. Kyle Harrison is also part of the conversation, though his role is less clear after recent performance left more questions than answers. For a Brewers team trying to extend its October run, the choice could shape not just Game 4, but the direction of the entire series. [Read more 🡒]