Brewers News: Why has Christian Yelich Missed the Last Two Games?

With the Milwaukee Brewers in a little bit of a rut, they needed some of their big-named players to step up in order to pull them out of it. For the first half of the month, outfielder Christian Yelich looked like he might be one of those players.

Through the first 15 days of the month, the former MVP had been batting .333 with a 1.000 OPS in 48 at bats. He'd also popped four long bombs, two of which coming in the same game on May 13th, had scored 10 runs, driven in another 12, and swiped four of four bags.

But on that 15th day of May, Yelich would end up being lifted from the game after three plate appearances. No one really thought much of it in the moment as the Brewers were getting slaughtered on the road by the Cardinals in a game they'd go on to lose 18-1, tying a record for the biggest loss in franchise history. Players get subbed out of games like that all the time.

Unfortunately, two more games have now passed, a 3-2 win over the St. Louis on Tuesday and a 3-0 loss to them yesterday, and Yelich was notably absent from both lineups. For Brewers fans, that now begs a question.

Why has Brewers outfielder Christian Yelich missed the last two games?

Well, if you are a Brewers fan who has been paying attention to the Yelich and the team over the past few seasons, your gut instinct would probably be to guess his absence is due to a back injury. In this case, you'd once again be correct.

Though there wasn't anything mentioned during the game, manager Craig Counsell was asked whether Yelich's removal was injury related after the game on Monday. Per MLB.com's Adam McCalvy, the response was that Yeli's back was a little tight.

Yelich would not be in the lineup the next day when Milwaukee would take the field at Busch Stadium. Fans had knowledge of Counsell's comments, but nothing further was mentioned prior to the game so a rest day is what was assumed.

Then Yelich was held back from the lineup again last night. Prior to that game, it was revealed that the play that caused the actual injury was the crazy one from Sunday in which Yelich scored from first after two Royals errors on the same play. Luckily, according to this tweet from McCalvy, Yelich was already much improved and stated how he's, "had way, way worse" situations with his back.

The Brewers have gotten much better at managing Yelich's chronic back issues over the years and his performance has largely followed suit. As Milwaukee starts a road series against the 32-12 Rays this weekend, let's hope the team's best player is back to normal and back in the lineup.