TAMPA – We already knew about dad strength. But did you know about mom power?
Swinging a pink bat on Mother’s Day with his mom’s name engraved on the barrel, Brewers star Christian Yelich put his team on the board with an opposite-field home run that turned into more when William Contreras followed with his own solo shot for the margin of victory in Sunday’s 4-2 win over the Rays at Steinbrenner Field.
Yelich hit Mother’s Day home runs with pink bats on at least two occasions with the Marlins, but had been mostly sticking to his usual lumber in recent years because the pink bats weren’t feeling quite right in his hands. This year, however, he opted to give the supply a try after it arrived from Louisville Slugger, in part because equipment manager Jason Shawger had suggested they have Alecia Yelich’s name etched where her son’s name would usually be, and in part because Christian isn’t off to the start he had in mind coming back from last year’s back surgery.
He went into Sunday’s series finale against the Rays with a .648 OPS, down from .910 last year, when Yelich was voted an All-Star Game starter and was leading the NL in batting average and on-base percentage before a back flare-up ended his season. So, on Sunday morning he figured, “Why not?”
“It couldn’t be getting much worse out there, so I might as well use my pink bat and see what happens,” Yelich said.
It produced another moment to remember on the sort of afternoon the Brewers needed.
The homer was Contreras’ first extra-base hit in 23 games as he battles through a fractured finger on his left hand. Second baseman Brice Turang made the sort of highlight-reel play he’s been lacking when he leaped to make an inning-ending catch in the seventh. In the eighth, reliever Joel Payamps continued a resurgence with his eighth scoreless appearance in his last nine trips to the mound. And after allowing a walk-off single to the only batter he faced on Saturday, Trevor Megill bounced back with a dominant save.
“That’s the team we have to be,” manager Pat Murphy said. “Offensively, they’re not quite there, but hopefully getting off the schneid and winning one of these games like this will catapult us into playing better baseball.”
The win spared the Brewers from being swept for the first time since their rough opening series against the Yankees, who happen to call this Tampa ballpark home during Spring Training. Yelich said he enjoyed returning to the field on which he was once ejected as a Marlins Minor Leaguer – and he especially enjoyed Sunday’s result.
“I think that’s what we have to do if we want to be a good team,” Yelich said. “I think it’s shown up at times this year, it just hasn’t shown up as consistently as we would like. You just have to keep striving to get there and have it all click.”
It was Yelich leading the way, finishing 2-for-4 with a stolen base after he singled, swiped second and scored an important insurance run in the eighth on a Rhys Hoskins single after Hoskins struck out in his first three trips to the plate.
Yelich and his two brothers have always been close with their mom, who gets credit for convincing Christian to stick with baseball after he was hit by pitches in three or four games in a row when he was 7 years old. He’s told the story of how he decided right there at first base that he was done with baseball, and when it came time to leave home for the next game, Alecia Yelich found her son in his room, arms folded, his uniform sitting on his dresser.
She convinced him to play.
“That’s a true story,” Yelich said in 2019. “I was pretty much over the whole baseball thing at that point. I was going to go play football or basketball. I was out. After that, everything changed for some reason, and here we are, talking to you guys.”
At the time, he was the reigning NL MVP. Six years later, he’s on the other side of 1,500 games played in the Major Leagues.
“It’s a good lesson about what can happen if you stick with something,” Yelich said. “It doesn’t all come easy. I’m thankful that she made me finish out my commitment, basically. That’s the biggest message: Don’t quit. I think about it sometimes, and I don’t know what I would be doing if I didn’t get in that car.”
Of course, he planned to call his mom on Sunday night once the Brewers arrived in Cleveland. They would have plenty to talk about.
“All in all, a pretty cool day,” Yelich said.