Milwaukee Brewers: Christian Yelich’s Knee Injury Punctures Playoff Hopes

The Milwaukee Brewers received the worst possible news on Tuesday night.

When we saw Christian Yelich go down after fouling a pitch off his knee in the first inning on Tuesday night, it didn’t look great. The Milwaukee Brewers postponed giving an update on Yelich until after the game.

When they did deliver an update, it was a gut punch.

It’s the worst case scenario: a fractured kneecap that will end Yelich’s season.

What Does This Mean For Yelich?

His chance at history with a 50 home run/30 stolen base season? Done. His chance to carry the Brewers into the playoffs for the second straight season? Done. His chances at back-to-back MVP awards? Most likely done.

It’s going to mean an early offseason for Yelich and plenty of rehab trying to recover from this injury.

This shouldn’t be something that will carry over into next year, which is good. But it’s bad news for this team’s hopes in 2019.

What Does This Mean For The Brewers?

It’s a giant punch in the gut for the Milwaukee Brewers playoff hopes this year. They’ve lost their MVP, their best hitter, and their leader.

This team has won five in a row and firmly planted themselves directly in the Wild Card race with an outside chance at the division title. They currently sit just two games back of the Cubs for the second Wild Card and five and a half games back of the Cardinals in the division.

One of two things will happen with the Brewers for the rest of this season. They will either rally around each other, elevate their play, and surge themselves to a playoff spot. Or, the offense will collapse without Yelich and they will falter in the final weeks.

Here’s hoping that it won’t be the latter.

Fangraphs has the Brewers playoff odds at 27.6%, but that’s likely to decrease after this news is factored in. But their chances of continuing this run they’ve been on to make the playoffs have dropped considerably. Yelich was the one they could count on to produce. Now he’s not there.

A String Of Injuries

This is just the latest in a string of bad injuries for this team. Mike Moustakas, Keston Hiura, Brandon Woodruff, Corey Knebel, and now Christian Yelich have been bit by the injury bug lately.

It seems like this team has been cursed with the injury bug this year. So many guys have dealt with injuries, and although that happens to every team in every season, it just seems to be so much more than normal this season for the Brewers.

The Brewers are going to have to rise to the occasion or they’ll fall down to the ground. We have a few weeks to find out what they’ll do.

The Milwaukee Brewers were able to withstand so many injuries this year. But this is one injury that they may not be able to rise above.