Christian Yelich's simple World Series message for title-less Brewers: Expect to be here

MILWAUKEE (AP) — Milwaukee Brewers manager Pat Murphy was celebrating his team’s World Series appearance when he shared that recently crowned team captain Christian Yelich had predicted this moment several months before.

“Yeli said it early in the season,” Murphy said after the Brewers completed their NL Championship Series sweep of the Dodgers. “He said, ‘You’d better start believing because we’re going to the World Series,’ and we’re right here.”

There’s only one problem with this narrative. Yelich can’t recall making that proclamation.

“I don’t remember,” Yelich said Thursday, the day before the Brewers host the Tampa Bay Rays in their first World Series game since 1982. “He told me I said that. I don’t know. But I think throughout the year, you just believed that. I think you have to believe that and you have to expect to be here. You don’t want to approach it like, ‘Wow, I can’t believe we’re here.’ You should expect to be here, especially with the kind of team we’ve had.”

Whether Yelich actually said it or not, the fact his perceived comment would carry such weight comes as no surprise.

Yelich, 34, and pitcher Brandon Woodruff are the only players who have been on Milwaukee’s roster throughout the Brewers’ run of eight playoff appearances in nine seasons. The Brewers acquired him from Miami in 2018, and he was named NL MVP later that year. Yelich's value in the clubhouse has remained as strong as ever, even as he’s battled injuries over the last several years and a drop in production this season.

Teammates say the Brewers’ decision to name Yelich the first team captain in franchise history on the final weekend of the regular season merely formalized what they already knew.

“He’s been a captain before he got the ‘C,'" outfielder Sal Frelick said. “We all know that.”

He’s one of three active captains in MLB, joining the New York Yankees’ Aaron Judge and the Kansas City Royals’ Salvador Perez.

Yelich’s appreciation for Brewers history was evident from the way he reacted to this honor. When the idea was proposed to Yelich, he initially wanted to make sure it was OK with Hall of Fame shortstop Robin Yount, who never had the captain title but is regarded as the best Brewers player ever.

Yount called Yelich’s concern “a very humbling” gesture that “certainly wasn’t necessary.”

“He certainly deserved that, earned that on his own,” Yount said. “The fact that the Brewers chose to actually give a captain’s ‘C’ on his jersey, and all of that. I think it’s great. I think the timing couldn’t have been better for something like this.”

Now Yelich is playing a major role in helping the Brewers get back to the World Series for the first time since Yount led them there during his MVP season of 1982. This hasn’t been a banner season for Yelich, whose .315 on-base percentage and .692 OPS were career lows.

But he has been coming through lately.

Yelich ended a string of 18 straight postseason games without an RBI when he singled home a run in Game 3 of the NL Division Series at San Diego. He has gone 7 for 24 at the plate this postseason, a .292 average that eclipses his regular-season average of .235.

Murphy says he noticed how much the “C” meant to Yelich.

“It was real for him,” Murphy said. “You can tell when you give someone something or you let somebody know something. It was real for Yelich, in a way that I was even shocked at. Since then, I don’t know the numbers, but I just know this guy is on point. He’s focused.

“He feels that responsibility. And I think it’s an easier responsibility for him to carry, because it’s so natural, than to try to carry the pressure of, ‘Hey, I’ve got to get four hits or I’ve got to do this.’ He’s way more important to this process than anyone knows.”

Yelich has been setting an example to his younger teammates for years.

“He took me under his wing my first big-league camp before I was even in the big leagues,” Frelick said. “Walking me through baserunning stuff. I’m like, ‘This guy has won an MVP. Why is he telling me how tight I have to cut the third-base bag when I’m running home from second?’ It’s because he just knows how to play the game. He cares. He knows that’s how to win baseball games. And he knows that if people hear it coming from him, they’ll then tell other guys how important it is.”

That kind of approach had Yelich and his younger teammates believing they could reach a World Series. Now they’re finally here.

“This is the expectation and the standard we wanted to set going into spring training,” Yelich said. “It isn’t like we woke up and found ourselves here. This was the goal and where we wanted to be.”

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