Milwaukee Brewers: Christian Yelich Drops Out Of Home Run Derby

Milwaukee Brewers slugger Christian Yelich was slated to be the top seed in Monday’s Home Run Derby. Now, that won’t be happening.

In a surprising turn of events, Christian Yelich has dropped out of the 2019 Home Run Derby, citing a minor back injury. Oakland A’s third baseman Matt Chapman will replace Yelich in the Derby. Now the Milwaukee Brewers won’t have any representatives performing on Monday night.

Yelich backing out of the Derby gives Brewers fans some mixed feelings. On one hand, the group that never wanted him in the Derby to begin with gets what they want, even though it’s due to injury, which is not something any Brewers fan wants to have happen to Yelich. On the other hand, the fans that were excited to see him compete in the Derby now won’t get the show we know Yelich could put on.

However, no one was more disappointed in this decision than Yelich, who had to make the decision himself.

It had to be difficult for Yelich, amidst another MVP level season to miss the big stage and a chance to even further prove doubters wrong. But alas, there’s always next year, right?

Is This Good Or Bad?

Well, it’s bad in the fact that Yelich is dealing with an injury, but it doesn’t appear serious. He’s still looking to start the All Star Game the next night and play his regularly scheduled innings there. So it can’t be that bad.

What’s good in this is that Yelich realized his back injury was just serious enough for him to want to back out and protect himself so he can be at 100% for the Milwaukee Brewers and help them win the games that count, which is the most important thing. If he’s not feeling at 100% and is at a higher than usual risk of injuring his back or some other body part, he should not do the Derby, and that’s exactly what happened.

The Home Run Derby is fun, but winning it doesn’t mean a thing for the rest of the season. Having a healthy Christian Yelich means a whole lot for the rest of the season for the Milwaukee Brewers.

Overall, I’m glad that he pulled out, although slightly concerned about the injury, it doesn’t appear he’ll miss any more game time and should be ready to go when the second half of the season starts. I’ll gladly sacrifice watching Yelich in the Derby if it means he’s healthy and able to do what he’s been doing for the rest of the season and the postseason.

The Brewers were fortunate this injury had popped up when it did. If he got hurt during the Derby and had to miss serious time, we would have too many “what-if” scenarios to process and it would just be a bad blow to the organization. It’s better to have a minor flare up now than when it’s too late.