Emotions fuel Brewers reliever Jeffress
We know Jeremy Jeffress. This is his third stint with the Milwaukee Brewers and we’ve watched him grow and evolve. From being drafted in 2006 to the earliest days of firing pitches for seven or eight innings to his transition to being a bullpen, end-of-game guy.
But this year we have noticed a more demonstrative side of Jeffress. He has allowed his emotions to be on full display.
Chest-thumping, fist-pumping, the 31-year-old pitcher would howl at the moon if the game were played after midnight.
“I don’t want to be fake, you know?” Jeffress said this week as the Brewers prepared for the National League Championship Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers. “It’s hard to be real – in the public eye – and not be talked about. Or criticized.
“But I just try not to be fake. That’s all.”
Emotions are a tricky thing in sports. They can fuel an athlete as much as they can derail his poise. They expose the personal investment the player has put into that performance, that team, that organization, that game, that season. In a competitive world where everything is about getting an edge, an emotional player opens himself up to vulnerability.
Jeffress doesn’t care about that. He has to be who he is. And he has been through a lot, making this year, this run, emotional.
There was a time and a point in Jeffress’ life when he used to put up a front and pretend to be someone else – and he thinks it affected his performance. So now he’s going to play with that fire that can look a little dangerous at times.
“I encourage that for him,” said Brewers bullpen coach Lee Tunnell. “Because that’s his persona.
“I remember from a couple years ago, in spring training from the very first pitch, he got that focus and that persona on. And he was lights out that whole spring. I just started encouraging him. That’s who he is. Be that!”
Jeffress said he was young when he first started to present a side of him that wasn’t authentic. It occasionally coincided with the times he used marijuana – a way of self-medicating epileptic seizures – and abused alcohol. Other times he tried to be fake when he felt he needed to – brave face, tough guy, everything was OK.
“Yeah. Most definitely. And my game definitely showed,” Jeffress said. “People would say, ‘That’s not the same JJ we saw two years ago. And he’s playing. What’s happening?’ Once one thing starts, it’s almost like a snowball effect.” Jeffress was asked for an example. “Back in 2011. I went to a rehab facility in Arizona,” he said.
Jeffress went reluctantly, offended that someone would take the time to research the facility for him. It felt like meddling. But not long into the monthlong rehab, he changed, realizing he was in the right place.
“It honestly shot my heart – to the point where it’s like, ‘Dude, you can’t do this on your own, bro.’ Like, ‘You can not. Do it. On. Your. Own,’ ” he said.
His parents were a world away in Virginia. He was not allowed to leave the facility. He was young, in his early 20s.
“As I kept going through it I was like, ‘Dude, I’m so alone – I can’t do this on my own,’ ” Jeffress said. “Honestly, those days were just like … painful.
“It was to the point where I started shutting people out. It just got bad.”
He got through it, he said, with phone calls from family and friends.
And to this day, while the memories of rehab do not consume him, he does rely on the tools he learned to help him deal with things.
That’s also why his top memory from Sept. 26 in St. Louis was that his family and friends were there when he had the ball in his hands for the final out as the Brewers beat the Cardinals to clinch a playoff spot. To Jeffress their support will never be diminished.
Jeffress also made sure he had the grape-flavored soda on hand after that game. While other players in the clubhouse celebrated with champagne and beer, Jeffress did not. Brewers beat writer Andrew Wagner from Forbes snapped a photo of Jeffress beaming in the clubhouse with his purple can of pop and posted it on Twitter.
“A lot of stuff has changed in my life,” Jeffress said this week. “I want to show people that it’s OK to be a recovering alcoholic – and still play the game that you love. And give it all that you got. And be good at it.”
And be happy.
“Exactly. Because at the end of the day this is not going to define who you are.”
Unfortunately, Jeffress needed a personal day off five days later for the extra regular-season game against the Chicago Cubs to decide the NL Central champion.
“I’ve had to deal with issues related to epilepsy throughout my life,” Jeffress said this week. “It’s not an everyday thing, not something that happens a lot, but it’s part of my life.
“That Monday in Chicago, I was working through it and they decided to hold me out. I was good to pitch and ready to go but respect their decision.”
Three days later, Jeffress pitched a rough ninth inning against Colorado – facing the Rockies’ toughest hitters – and allowed them to tie the game with two runs. But he stopped it there, and Mike Moustakas picked up his teammate with a two-out, two-strike walkoff single in the 10th that won Game 1 of the NL Division Series for the Brewers.
The next day, last Friday against Colorado, Jeffress tore through the strike zone with a brilliant two-inning save. That’s when you saw the latest display of emotion, a victorious Jeffress walking to the dugout, with beast mode and bravado.
That wasn’t cockiness at all. That was the emotion that pushes Jeffress through any doubts and second-guessing that might have hurt his performance.
“Yeah! Most definitely. When you don’t have it all, you’ve just got to believe who you are,” Jeffress said.
“He wants the ball, he really believes in himself for the big moment,” Tunnell said. “He doesn’t shrink back from that and he believes in his heart that’s what he was made for. Built for.”
Jeffress has been a big part of a bullpen that has been the story of the 2018 season for the Brewers. He has been reliable, sometimes dominant and always all-in. He’s engrossed in baseball right now, so talking about his emotions, and the sources behind them, may not be in the forefront of his mind.
But there’s an unmistakable, immense gratitude underlying every emotion he reveals. For his girlfriend, Denise Daniels, who he said is the backbone of support. For high school coaches back home – he still goes by their house every Thanksgiving to check in. For his parents, who have been together for 36 years and are “still in my corner each and every day.”
For the familiar faces in Milwaukee that make this feel like home, including Tunnell, who has worked with him for years.
“I love him. He belongs here,” Tunnell said. “I’m a dad at heart. I pull for him. I just care about him. I genuinely pull for every guy and it’s the being there – to help people get put back together – that is the privilege of life.”
Jeffress said the Brewers not only accept his temperament but embrace it because it’s authentic.
“Be who you are. Don’t try to be someone you’re not,” Jeffress said. “Because if you try to do that – you can’t perform like that – trying to be someone else.”