The plot has thickened
Yelich tries to oust hometown Dodgers
Christian Yelich can't help but shake his head and chuckle at the way things have turned out for him so far this year.
The late January trade to the Milwaukee Brewers. A career year featuring not one but two cycles and, likely, a National League most valuable player award. His first postseason experience capped by a threegame sweep of the Colorado Rockies in the National League Division Series.
Now comes the National League Championship Series, and a matchup against his hometown Los Angeles Dodgers that begins Friday night at Miller Park.
"Short answer, it's crazy," Yel-
ich said when asked about playing the Dodgers for the right to go to the World Series as a native of suburban Los Angeles. Ryan Braun and Mike Moustakas also hail from the Los Angeles area while team principal owner Mark Attanasio is a longtime resident of the city.
"I've definitely been to my fair share of Dodger games growing up. Didn't grow up too far from the stadium. That's where I first learned, first watched major-league baseball.
"I had a lot of friends, family friends, that had season tickets and we'd all go when we were little kids. And you'd go after you played your own baseball game and change out of your uniform in the parking lot of Dodger Stadium to go put on street clothes and go watch the game."
Yelich recalled attending the game in 2004 when Dodgers closer Eric Gagné had his streak of consecutive games saves snapped at 84 by the Arizona Diamondbacks, and it was a decade later when he made his major-league debut there with the Miami Marlins.
He's a .258 hitter with four home runs in 18 career games there, and he'll get his next shot at adding to those numbers in Game 3 on Monday when the series shifts back to Los Angeles.
Yelich is also likely to have a largerthan-normal rooting section there thanks to how he and his Brewers have played this season.
With the 26-year-old leading the way Milwaukee surged down the stretch of the regular season, upended the reigning Central Division-champion Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field crown in Game 163 and totally dominated the Rockies to get to within four victories of the franchise's second-ever World Series appearance.
It's all been enough to help change the rooting interests of some lifelong Dodgers fans who are very close to Yelich.
"A lot of friends and family that they always told me growing up that if we ever played the Dodgers in a playoff series that they'd be rooting for me to do well, but us to lose and the Dodgers to win," Yelich said. "I think we've converted them. They're all rooting for the Brewers now. I never thought I'd see the day. It's going to be cool, for sure.
"Your 10-year-old self probably wouldn't believe what was about to take place here over the next week or so. It's going to be a great opportunity, and something to just have fun with, enjoy and just try and take it all in."
Yelich entered the postseason on an absolute roll at the plate, riding a huge second half to a .326 average, 36 homers, 110 runs batted in and an OPS of 1.000. It was a performance that should make him the Brewers' second-ever NL MVP, with Braun the other as the 2011 winner.
The postseason has been a different story for Yelich, though. After homering in just his second-ever postseason atbat in Game 1 of the NLDS, Yelich didn't see much else to hit from Colorado's pitchers.
So he took his walks, and he enters Friday tied with the Dodgers' Max Muncy for the major-league lead in the playoffs with six free passes.
Yelich has also singled, leaving him with a .250 average and two stolen bases on a Brewers team that finally broke out a bit in Game 3 of the NLDS with a 6-0 victory.
Things won't get any easier for Yelich against the Dodgers, who are going with ace left-hander Clayton Kershaw in Game 1 and another lefty in Hyun-Jin Ryu in Game 2.
Right-hander Walker Buehler takes the mound in Game 3 and veteran lefty Rich Hill will go in Game 4.
Hitting lefties has not been an issue for Yelich this season; his .337 average, 10 homers and 33 RBI in 192 plate appearances against them were all career bests. Two of those homers have come against Kershaw — one at Miller Park and one at Dodger Stadium — and Yelich said he's looking forward to "a great battle" with the veteran.
While Yelich has always hit for average in his career, the two biggest things that stand out about his season to date are his homer total (36 after a previous career high of 21 in 2016) and his success against left-handed pitching.
To hear him tell it, Yelich's improvement has come through sheer force of will.
"I think it goes back to just learning yourself as a player and trying to improve, and really looking at what you're doing when you have success and what you do when you don't," Yelich said. "They've got some of the best left-handed pitchers in the game, and it's always a challenge. I think competing gets overlooked sometimes. The competitiveness that you bring to a game and an atbat, it can go a long way. It really can.
"If you're just really trying to will it to happen or find a way, I think that gets overlooked a lot in this game. And that's been a big emphasis not only in my game, but our team — just to compete as hard as you can at-bat to at-bat, whether you're a position player or pitcher.
"That's what we've been doing, that's what I've been doing, and it's paid off for us."
The Brewers enter the NLCS with a 3-4 record against the Dodgers this season.
Winning at least one at Miller Park is going to be a must for Milwaukee, and a 2-0 series lead would be an ideal scenario as the Brewers then head back to Los Angeles and the same Dodger Stadium that was so near and dear to Yelich's heart as a youngster.