Milwaukee Brewers: 3 Bright spots from tough 2020 season

Jedd Gyorko

Jedd Gyorko endeared himself to every Brewer tailgater with a series of cornhole (or bags) trick shots. Then he endeared himself to everyone else by absolutely mashing the ball, especially off of left-handed pitching.

By almost any account, this has been the best season of Gyorko’s career. He has career highs in batting average and on-base percentage, and his slugging percentage of .579 is well above his former best of .495. It’s really been his dominance of lefties that made him the player he’s been this season.

Against right-handers, his numbers are really pretty pedestrian, and he’s not walking as much or hitting for near as much power. His slash line against righties is .273/.305/.491, and if he was just doing that against all pitchers, he’d still be one of the best offensive players this team has, but he’s not. He’s doing much more against southpaws, slashing .275/.423/.700.

That .423 on-base percentage would put him fourth in the entire Major Leagues, and the .700 slugging mark would be tops in the Majors. Basically, when Gyorko is up to bat against a lefty, you should get the same feeling you used to get when Christian Yelich stepped up to the plate in 2018 and 2019.

Gyorko’s splits just a few weeks ago against right-handed pitching weren’t quite where they are now, and he was essentially a pure platoon guy, but he’s played himself into an everyday role where they can’t really afford not to have him in the lineup. His home run last night against the Reds was even more proof of that.

I’d also be remiss if I didn’t mention that he is the best pitcher on the team. He logged one scoreless inning in a 2-12 loss on August 12, earlier this season, and if you didn’t think I’d mention that one random weird thing he did in addition to his legitimate stats, then you probably don’t know me because I’m all about weird baseball stuff.