Yelich’s day off gets fans worked up

National League most valuable player candidate Christian Yelich was back in the lineup Friday as the Milwaukee Brewers opened a threegame weekend series with the San Francisco Giants at Miller Park.

But before the game he was incredulous having to explain why he was out of the lineup Wednesday with the Cubs in town and the chance to cut Chicago’s Central Division lead to two games with a win.

The Brewers lost to the Cubs, 6-4, and entered Friday 41⁄2 games back.

It was a hot-button topic on social media throughout Wednesday night, and the criticism of both Yelich and manager Craig Counsell spilled over into Thursday, which was an off-day for the team.

One of the most easygoing and approachable players on the Brewers, Yelich indicated he was frustrated by what he’d heard both in person while out and about in Milwaukee and what he’d seen on his Twitter timeline.

He even went so far as to respond to a tweet from a Cubs fan who incorrectly stated Yelich had essentially asked out of the lineup Wednesday rather than taking off Friday against a 68-73 Giants team.

“Having your competitiveness and your desire as an athlete called into question is, for sure, frustrating,” Yelich said. “We’re all out there trying to win as many games as possible and I think that should be the main goal.

“The fact that this has even become something that we have to address here I think is ridiculous to be honest with you. But I understand where it’s coming from at the same time.

“I’m moving forward and I’m playing tonight.”

Counsell has routinely given everyday veteran players games off preceding team off-days in order to lengthen their recovery, so sitting Yelich in that situation was nothing out of the ordinary despite the perceived higher stakes.

Yelich – who eventually came off the bench to deliver a pinch-hit single in the ninth – ranks third on the team in games played with 126, but he missed eight in early April after a stint on the disabled list caused by a strained right oblique.

He’d played in all but five innings for the Brewers since July 3, a span of 55 straight games that included nine extra-inning games.

His 555 plate appearances entering Friday were tops on the Brewers, and he’s on pace to surpass his career high of 695 set last season. He’s a bona fide contender to be named NL MVP with a .316 average, 27 home runs, 85 runs batted in and a .936 OPS.

“Things come up during the season that you have to deal with,” he said. “We dealt with it, we addressed it, I’m fine. I’m playing today. I foresee myself playing for the rest of the season.

“I talked to Couns about it after the game Monday and he said, ‘I’m thinking about giving you a day on Wednesday,’ and I said, ‘All right, we’ll talk about this later – we’re still a couple days out – and we’ll see where we’re at.’ It ended up being that Wednesday was a day we just needed to get some stuff squared away, and we did.

“I think our focus should be on the season, the series, where we’re at as a team. I think we’re in a great spot as a team. We’ve got a three-week push here to get where we want to be. That’s where the focus should be. It shouldn’t be on all these other things.

“It’s unfortunate that seems to have been the case.”

Counsell said that once he began seeing signs that Yelich was wearing down, the decision to rest him became obvious.

“He was at this point four days ago, where fatigue had just set in,” he said. “So myself and our staff, we have to recognize that. We recognized it four days ago.

“We pushed it, and then it reached a point where we’re not going to push this any longer, because at that point we are risking injury. We’re risking injury, and, to me, we’re risking him changing the way he’s doing things.

“You have to weigh the costs and benefits, and it reached a point, for me – and we recognized it earlier and tried to keep going – that we had to give him the day.

“It’s the right thing to do. Those decisions have to be made. It’s one game, and there are going to be other players who are pretty good who are playing.”

The public outcry is nothing new for Counsell, who has had to explain his deployment of Josh Hader in the bullpen at several points this season – including as recently as this past weekend.

“I think we’re just at the stage of the season where everybody wants to win,” he said. “We’ve got some overreaction to some things going on, and that’s fine, that’s part of it. We’re going to make our decisions here over the rest of the year, and there are going to be more difficult decisions.

“And you’re not going to like them all.”

Both Yelich and Counsell pointed out that Hernán Pérez went 1 for 3 with a run scored starting in right field in place of Yelich on Wednesday, and Curtis Granderson came off the bench to hit a two-run homer in place of Pérez.

“I think people who are questioning that are not in this building, they’re not in this grind with us and they don’t understand where we’re at as a team,” Yelich said. “They can say whatever they want to say. It’s unfortunate that they even have those beliefs that as a team we wouldn’t be trying to go out there and win every possible game – whether it’s the Cubs or the Giants or whoever we’re playing.

“Every game for us is of equal importance. They all matter to us. I think the thing that should be focused on is how we’ve won five series in a row now. We control our own destiny, I guess you could say, through the rest of the season.”