The Milwaukee Brewers will be without their All-Star Christian Yelich for the foreseeable future. The star has been placed on the 10-day injured list with lower back inflammation on Wednesday.
He will now see a specialist on Thursday to discuss the next steps, including the possibility of a season-ending surgery.
Here is what Yelich said through MLB.com.
Everybody plays through stuff but sometimes you just can’t. That’s kind of where we’re at, at this point. Your body won’t cooperate with you. For me, aside from when I broke my knee, this has been the one thing that I’ve had to deal with. It’s frustrating. I’ve dealt with it a lot during my career. I feel like it’s kind of affected me in a negative way at times. I’ve been able to play at a high level but it’s one of those things that’s held me back a little, so that’s where it’s frustrating. What are you going to do? But also, though, there’s a potential that I can finally get on the other side of this, finally, when all is said and done. We’ll see. It remains to be seen, I guess.”
He has a history of back injuries and every so often he misses a game or two. In his MLB career, he has gone on the injured list with a back issue six times. That does not include the day-to-day issues that pop up every year.
In the match last week, the star started the All-Star Game in right field. He got two at-bats and played five innings in the field. He’s been out of the lineup entirely twice in the last six games of the team.
It looks like they’ve been managing the back issue for a while. Now, it seems that surgery is the last resort for Yelich.