Jackson Chourio placed on IL, Brandon Lockridge added to roster

Chourio’s IL stint was expected after yesterday’s comments

The hope that Jackson Chourio could avoid a stint on the injured list after leaving Tuesday’s victory with a hamstring “spasm” was mostly dashed yesterday, when Matt Arnold spoke to the press after the trade deadline and indicated that they would be “cautious.” Today, the team officially placed Chourio on the 10-day injured list, backdated to Wednesday, making his earliest return date as next Saturday, August 9th.

Chourio’s injury is a blow, as he has been the Brewer offense’s best player of late and, in case you have not heard, the team did not bolster their offensive firepower at this year’s trade deadline. With Garrett Mitchell already out for what is assumed to be the rest of the year, the Brewers will roll out an outfield for the next week or so that features Sal Frelick, Isaac Collins, and Blake Perkins, with an occasional dash of the newcomer Lockridge and probably a start or two in left from Christian Yelich. Leave Yelich aside, and those four players have 30 career home runs. Or if you want to think of it a different way, six fewer than Eugenio Suárez has this season.

Two things to put in the “optimist” column, though. First, Chourio’s own downplaying of the injury after Tuesday’s game and Arnold’s comments yesterday suggested that this injury is not thought to be serious. All indications are that this is similar to what the Brewers did with Sal Frelick and his recent hamstring tweak, though the team will not benefit from the missed games due to the All-Star break that counted toward Frelick’s 10 days.

In addition, the Brewers do have a relatively soft spot in the schedule over the next week as they’ll play three in Washington against the Nationals and three in Atlanta against the Braves before a day off on Thursday, leaving only next Friday’s game against the Mets as a game against a team over .500 if Chourio misses the minimum amount of time.

Lockridge, acquired yesterday in the Nestor Cortes trade with San Diego, has played in 59 games at the major league level and batted .210/.248/.280. That’s obviously not great, but in the (hitter friendly) Pacific Coast League this season, he hit .291/.408/.468 in 21 games, and last year hit hit .306/.410/.397 while playing at Triple-A in the Yankees’ and Padres’ systems. He’s obviously not going to hit for power but he has some on-base skills, and he’s a threat once on: in his minor league career, Lockridge has stolen 154 bases in 181 attempts (an 85% success rate).