LOS ANGELES — The Brewers know it won’t be easy to rally past the Dodgers in the National League Championship Series — a task that will require them to win four of the potential next five games.
But a path to the NL pennant becomes far more feasible if two of Milwaukee’s best hitters — Christian Yelich and Brice Turang — can find their respective swings as the series shifts to Los Angeles.
The fact is, the Brewers go as those two go. It’s not a novel concept — most teams tend to perform better when their star hitters are, well, hitting.
It’s particularly true, though, for the Brewers. In the regular season, Milwaukee was 80-43 when Yelich reached base even once — that’s a 105-win pace. The club was just 9-18 in games when Yelich did not reach safely.
Similarly, the Brewers were 80-46 when Turang reached at least once (a 102-win pace). They were 13-17 when he did not reach base.
So, with Yelich and Turang mired in a slump over the past week, it’s no surprise that the Brewers have lost four of their past five games — and suddenly find themselves in a 2-0 hole in the best-of-seven NLCS.
“We just have to play better,” Yelich said of the team. “It’s not an ideal start to the series, by any means. It’s not what you want to get off to, but we have to continue to battle and find a way to get the offense better. I’ve got to be better. We’ve got to be better.”
Yelich is just 5-for-26 (.192) with one double this postseason. Since his three-hit effort in Game 2 of the NLDS against the Cubs, he’s just 1-for-18 (.056), including 0-for-13 in his past four games.
That, of course, is a small sample — but everything is magnified in the postseason.
“To put it on Yeli, like Yeli is struggling — he hasn’t got a lot of hits in the last three or four games,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy said. “If this was midseason, nobody would say a word. But now, we’re chirping about it like there’s something wrong with Yelich.
“He’ll respond. He always does.”
Yelich is 0-for-13 with runners in scoring position in his MLB postseason career.
“Not the best, you know?” Yelich said. ” … An unfortunate time for that to happen. I’ve got to be better. I’ve got to figure it out.”
Turang is in a similar spot.
After going 2-for-5 in the NLDS opener, he is just 2-for-23 (.087) since. There was hope that his clutch homer in the NLDS clincher would get him going, but Turang is just 1-for-8 with three K’s in this series. He’s struck out at least once in all seven games this postseason.
Overall, Turang has 11 strikeouts and only four hits in seven games this postseason. He did not have a single seven-game stretch during the regular season with more than 10 K’s and fewer than five hits.
“He’s been so consistent all year with his work,” said Eric Theisen, one of the Brewers’ trio of hitting coaches. “He hasn’t changed anything in his work throughout this. … We always feel like it’s right around the corner with him.”
To that point, Turang has run into some tough luck. He has nine hard-hit balls (exit velocity of at least 95 mph) this postseason, but he’s just 2-for-9 on those. During the regular season, his hard-hit balls resulted in a .524 (109-for-208) average.
“I felt good the whole series [in the NLDS],” Turang said. “I was just mis-hitting a little underneath the ball. It’s just, you’ve got to move on, you can’t dwell on it. You’ve got to go, ‘Next at-bat, next at-bat.’ You try to do that all season, but especially in the postseason.”
The key number for this duo seems to be three. During the regular season, when Yelich and Turang combined to reach base at least three times, the Brewers went 64-25 — a 116-win pace. They’re 2-0 in those games this postseason.
But when they reach twice or fewer, Milwaukee is just 33-44, including 1-4 in the postseason.
“You get a few guys going,” Yelich said, “and you make a series of it.”
