MILWAUKEE – Every now and again, Jackson Chourio does something to remind you he’s still a kid playing this incredibly difficult game.
When Chourio stole his 20th base of the season in Friday’s 3-1 loss to the Reds to pair with his 20 home runs, it made him the youngest player in Major League history to deliver multiple 20-20 seasons. But it happened on a night the Brewers lost a Quinn Priester outing for the first time since late May, and the Reds climbed back into postseason position with two regular-season games to go.
Priester hadn’t lost since May 24 and neither had the Brewers whenever the right-hander took the mound, a remarkable stretch of 16 starts plus three long relief outings in which Priester went 12-0, and the Brewers won every game. That streak came to an end after a tough-luck outing in which Priester was charged with three runs on nine hits to finish a terrific regular season with a 13-3 record and a 3.32 ERA.
Brice Turang drove in the Brewers’ only run and the other highlight belonged to Chourio, who supplanted Mike Trout as the youngest player with multiple 20-20 seasons. Trout reached that status for the second time on his 22nd birthday in 2013.
Chourio is still 21, and won’t turn 22 until next March.
He hasn’t played with the fanfare of last year, when he cracked Milwaukee’s Opening Day roster as a 20-year-old and shrugged off early-season struggles to finish third in NL Rookie of the Year Award balloting, but he’s still been plenty productive for a Brewers team with the best record in the Majors, posting a 111 OPS+ going into Friday night.
