Milwaukee Brewers: 3 players to step up in Christian Yelich’s absence

The Milwaukee Brewers have lost Christian Yelich for the season and if they still hope to make a playoff push, these three players must step up.

The Milwaukee Brewers closed out Tuesday night’s game with their fifth win in a row, but they suffered a devastating loss as well. In his first at-bat, Christian Yelich would foul a ball off of his right knee cap that forced him to leave the game.

Unfortunately, we would learn once the game was over that Yelich fractured that right knee cap and he will be out for a remainder of the season. As much of a gut punch as this injury is, the Brewers still find themselves within reach of the playoffs.

Currently, they sit in the third wildcard spot, just one game behind the Chicago Cubs. With only three of their remaining games against a team with a winning record, Milwaukee still does have a shot at the playoffs if they can take advantage of their schedule.

With that said, if they are going to continue making this playoff push, these three players, in particular, must step up in the final weeks of the season with Yelich no longer in the lineup.

Trent Grisham

As we saw once Yelich left the game, Trent Grisham is likely to be the main fill-in at right field for the remainder of the season. Grisham has had a bit of a meteoric rise this season as he began the year in Double-A Biloxi, but he has been with the Milwaukee Brewers for over a month now.

Over his 32 games in Milwaukee, Grisham has a slash line of .260/.324/.448 with four home runs and 13 RBIs. However, it has been in the last week where Grisham has a .412 average and an OPS of 1.033 that he has really caught fire.

Now more than ever, the Brewers are going to need Grisham to stay hot at the plate and provide this team with some consistent offense.

Lorenzo Cain

It has been an up and down season for the Milwaukee Brewers offense and part of the reason for the inconsistency is because of the struggles that Lorenzo Cain has had at the plate. Up to this point in the season he has a slash line of .255/.323/.356 totaling a .679 OPS. All of which are well below his career averages.

But like Grisham, Cain has found some success as of late. This past week which has included 20 plate appearances for Cain, he has posted a .389 batting average and a .894 OPS. He has looked like the Cain of old and the player that we saw for much of last year and once again, he will need to continue producing at the plate to help pick up some of the slack.

Yasmani Grandal

This past offseason the Milwaukee Brewers made the big investment in free-agent catcher Yasmani Grandal and the move sure has paid off. His batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, and OPS are all above his career averages in each category.

Grandal is also just one home run shy of tying his career-high and two RBIs short of his career-best as well. Like the other two players listed, Yaz has had a lot of success recently which includes four home runs in the past week.

With Yelich gone, it may just have to be Yasmani Grandal who becomes the new leader of this offense and the catalyst behind any big moments that they have moving forward.

In the final weeks of the season, the Milwaukee Brewers already had games to make up and now without Yelich, it certainly doesn’t get any easier. Hopefully, this loss doesn’t affect their mentality on the field and the team can rally behind these three players to make a final playoff push.