If I told you before the season that the Milwaukee Brewers were leading the NL Central without Jackson Chourio playing to his full potential, would you believe me?
Now four and a half games up in the division, the Brewers' rising star is finally finding his rhythm and showing what he's made of. After hitting only one home run in his first 20 appearances of the season, Chourio now has three homers in his last six games. Half of those were multi-hit games, culminating with a four-hit, two-homer masterpiece in a tough loss to San Francisco on Thursday.
Now in his third season in the majors, the left fielder is posting career-highs in several major categories, including batting average (.308), on-base percentage (.373), and slugging percentage (.505). Those numbers have been steadily on the rise in what's been a scorching hot start to June for Chourio, in which he has posted a ridiculous .706 on-base percentage with eight hits and eight runs in 17 plate appearances.
Expectations were sky-high for Chourio heading into this season, until the Venezuelan native was hit by a pitch and suffered a fractured left hand during the World Baseball Classic. That sidelined him for the first 20% of the Milwaukee Brewers' regular season and put a halt to all his momentum.
Now that Chourio is rounding into form, nothing is holding the Milwaukee Brewers back from reaching their offensive potential.
Jackson Chourio is the key to fully unlocking the Milwaukee Brewers' offense.
While second baseman Brice Turang might've stolen the crown of the Brewers' most exciting young bat from Chourio, the 22-year-old has every opportunity to take the title back this season. He's a staple of Pat Murphy's batting order, currently ranking in the 91st percentile in max exit velocity (113.3) among qualified batters, per Baseball Savant.
Despite missing 31 games last season, Chourio finished in the Top 3 of total home runs, RBI and stolen bases for Milwaukee a year ago. His importance to this team's success cannot be understated because they were able to get by without him. Coming off his first multihomer game of the year, Chourio is now the Brewers' leader in slugging percentage and OPS on the season.
The proof is in the pudding, as Milwaukee won six of its nine games when Chourio logged multiple hits this year. When Chourio has logged a run this season, the Brewers have a 9-3 record. While this is far from a proper encapsulation of everything that contributed to those outcomes, it's fair to say that the Brewers are much better off offensively when Chourio is engaged and making contact.
Whether or not he can rally from his early-season injuries and make an All-Star appearance is yet to be seen, but as the Brewers start thinking more about their long-term plans and how to capitalize on their title window, Chourio needs to be a significant part of the bigger picture.
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