SPORTS LINE
The Milwaukee Brewers, who are one of the biggest surprises in all of baseball this year, can’t stop hitting grand slams at a historic rate.
Christian Yelich and Blake Perkins both homered, had three hits, and drove in three runs as the Milwaukee Brewers beat the Los Angeles Dodgers 9-2 Sunday to snap a seven-game losing streak at Dodger Stadium. Eric Haase had a two-run homer in the fifth inning for the Brewers. Yelich started the scoring with a two-run homer in the fourth inning off Dodgers’ starter Justin Wrobleski (0-1), who was making his major league debut. It was the second straight game Yelich had gone deep to center. He added an RBI double in the ninth inning. Yelich voted in as one of the NL’s starting outfielders for the July 16 All-Star Game, batted .393 (11 for 28) with three homers and five RBIs during the Brewers’ six-game road trip.
Perkins had a solo shot in the seventh inning and then drove in two runs when his base hit with the bases loaded just got by Dodgers’ third baseman Kiké Hernández and into left field. As a first-place team in their division, one would think a team like the Milwaukee Brewers should have multiple representatives in this month’s All-Star game. That will indeed be the case as catcher William Contreras and outfielder Christian Yelich have already been named starters. If anyone deserved to make it in it was those two. Contreras has arguably been the best offensive catcher in baseball and Yelich has looked much more like his MVP-level self from the 2018 and 2019 seasons. But those aren’t the only players on the team deserving of a spot on the NL All-Star roster.
The Brewers have gotten strong contributions from a number of their guys, with players like Joey Ortiz and Brice Turang often being mentioned as being worthy of an All-Star spot. With star closer Devin Williams getting hurt this spring and having to miss over half of the season, tall fireballer Trevor Megill ended up emerging to temporarily take over the closer’s role for the Brewers. And he has been largely magnificent in doing so. But there’s another Milwaukee player on the pitching staff who has perhaps been getting overlooked by some while putting up an extremely strong season. What makes it even more impressive is that he is doing so while being put into a role that wasn’t originally planned heading into the season.
