Christian Yelich was putting together a resurgent season for a resurgent Milwaukee Brewers team when he was felled by a lower back inflammation in July.
The 2018 National League Most Valuable Player was hitting .315 with 11 home runs, 42 RBIs and 21 stolen bases in only 73 games. The injury was serious. For weeks, he had been trying to avoid season-surgery, but on Thursday the prognosis came: Yelich’s season is over.
“It just got to the point where (the injury) wasn’t getting better,” he says in the video posted Thursday to Yelich’s Twitter/X account. “I tried everything I could. Ran out of options and it came time to make a decision so surgery’s scheduled.”
The surgery will take place Friday, Yelich said.
“It’s the best option we really had left,” he added. “There’s no way to put it, other than it sucks,” he said. “It’s terrible.
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Yelich, 32, was an All-Star in 2018 and 2019. He followed up his MVP season by leading the National League in batting average, on-base percentage and slugging the following year but finished second in the MVP race to the Dodgers’ Cody Bellinger.
From 2020-23, he’s averaged .254 with a .362 on-base percentage and .362 slugging percentage — respectable numbers, but not enough even to earn an All-Star nomination. That’s what made his resurgent 2024 season so special.
Yelich’s 152 OPS+ was his highest since 2019, and stood out enough among NL outfielders to land him on his third career All-Star team. The Brewers were following suit, having exceeded expectations en route to a sizable lead in the National League Central.
After beating Los Angeles on Thursday, Milwaukee is 69-52, nine games ahead of the Cincinnati Reds and St. Louis Cardinals in the division and just behind the Phillies (70-50) and Dodgers (71-51) for the best record in the NL.
The Brewers haven’t been to the National League Championship Series since 2018. Since then, they’re 0-4 in playoff series, having won only one game along the way. The Milwaukee’s potential to upset the favored Dodgers or the Phillies in the playoffs looked strong with Yelich.
Without their best player, the Brewers’ immediate future is a bit murkier. Yelich acknowledged as much in the video.
“Short-term, terrible,” he said. “Long-term, it’s going to be all right.”
