Across his nine seasons with the Milwaukee Brewers, Christian Yelich has found success on numerous levels. He’s won a wide array of accolades from two batting titles to the NL MVP in 2018. However, the outfielder and designated hitter never reached the World Series in those years of his career. But, now he made his World Series debut as the Brewers faced the Tampa Bay Rays in Game One of the series at American Family Field on Friday.
“It’s exciting. We’ve been close a few times. We have been knocking on the door to be in this series and have this opportunity. Now that it’s finally here, it’s awesome,” Yelich said in a pregame press conference.
Long Time Coming
En route to reaching this point, the Brewers snapped a 57-season title drought on top of never winning a championship in their franchise history. That was the second longest drought in baseball as there last World Series appearance was in 1982 when they were still part of the American League.
Since Christian Yelich joined the Brewers in 2018, they have taken strides towards appearing in another World Series. However, that has come at the expense of falling to the Los Angeles Dodgers in seven games in the 2018 NLCS. Seven years later, the Dodgers swept them in the 2025 NLCS. In short, it has been a long time coming for the Brewers and Yelich.
“You kind of just see how excited everybody is in the city and you can kind of feel that energy. It’s been awesome. I think everybody is really looking forward to tonight and getting this thing started,” he added.
Different Role
At the start of his tenure with the Brewers, Yelich was the team’s most valuable member. Most notably, he produced 187 hits, 110 RBI and 36 home runs with a 7.3 WAR. Since that point, his numbers have dropped due to a combination of injuries and reduced bat speed.
With Christian Yelich getting older, the Brewers have used him in a different role. As a result, they have relied more on the likes of Jackson Chourio and William Contreras while developing other contributors through the farm system. This strategy takes pressure off Yelich, who recorded seven hits, three RBI and two stolen bases in the postseason thus far.
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“It’s going to be awesome tonight and tomorrow night. Looking forward like like I said, the atmosphere has been really good this postseason here, but I think tonight is going to be another level with the roof closed and how long people have been waiting to come to the game,” Yelich concluded.
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