By Jalen Maki
Break out the brooms!
The Milwaukee Brewers opened the 2024 season with a three-game road series against the New York Mets and left the Big Apple with a sweep for the first time since 2011.
The Crew kicked off their season on Friday, after inclement weather bumped the game from Thursday. In the trio of wins (3-1 on Friday, 7-6 on Saturday, and 4-1 on Sunday), the Brewers were cooking in all aspects of the game.
In the series, Milwaukee logged 33 hits and scored 14 runs while giving up 20 hits and eight runs to New York. Notably, 12 hits and six runs for the Mets came in Saturday’s matchup.
Here are four things to know about the Brewers’ opening series:
Jackson Chourio: Future Rookie of the Year, MVP, and Hall of Famer
Ok, so that might be a bit of an overreaction, but folks…it looks like Jackson Chourio might be pretty dang good!
This, of course, should come as a surprise to no one. The Brewers’ top prospect and the MLB’s number two overall prospect quickly climbed through the Minor Leagues and put up remarkable numbers along the way: over three Minor League seasons, Chourio batted .286, had an OPS of .837, and hit 47 home runs, while being incredibly impactful on defense.
Chourio, 20, made his Big League debut in New York on Friday, the fourth-youngest Opening Day starter in MLB history. Brewers legend Robin Yount is on that list twice: In his first MLB start in 1974, Yount was 18 years and 201 days old, and he was 19 years and 204 days old when he started on Opening Day a season later. Other than Yount, only Ken Griffey Jr. and Adrián Beltré were younger than Chourio when they first broke into the Bigs. Pretty good company!
Batting leadoff and playing right field in his first Major League game, it didn’t take Chourio long to make his presence known. In his first at-bat, he drew a four-pitch walk off Mets starter Jose Quintana before swiping second base. He made a tremendous catch near the wall in right field in the fourth inning and logged his first Big League hit, a single, in the fifth. In the seventh, the speedster hit into a double play but beat out the throw to first, scoring a run and notching his first RBI, contributing to the Crew’s Opening Day dub.
On Saturday, Chourio had a pair of hits in five at-bats in the ninth spot in the lineup as the Brewers made it two wins in a row, but the biggest day of his young MLB career came on Sunday. In the second inning, Chourio drove a ball deep into right field over the head of Sterling Marte and off the bottom of the wall, scoring Brice Turang on the rookie’s first extra-base hit in the Majors. In the third, a sliding catch by Chourio robbed Mets slugger Pete Alonso of a base knock. Chourio went on to add one more hit as Milwaukee clinched the opening series sweep in New York, and he went back to Milwaukee batting .417 and touting an OPS of .962.
Not a bad debut series!
Freddy Peralta was dealing
Simply put, Freddy Peralta put on a clinic on Opening Day.
In his six superb innings, the Brewers’ ace struck out eight batters and walked one on his way to his first win of the season. Sterling Marte’s second inning home run was the only hit Peralta allowed, and the Mets’ only hit of the game.
Trevor Megill, Joel Payamps and the hard-throwing Abner Uribe handled the seventh, eighth, and ninth innings, respectively. Payamps had two strikeouts in his three-up, three-down inning.
The Hoskins Slide Debacle
I’m not sure if this is truly a scandal deserving of its own nickname, but regardless, things got a little tense in the eighth inning on Friday.
Rhys Hoskins, the Brewers’ new first baseman by way of the Philadelphia Phillies, slid feet-first past second base on a potential double play, hitting the lower leg of Mets second baseman Jeff McNeil before he could attempt to make a throw to first. McNeil, who said in a postgame clubhouse interview that he and Hoskins have “a little bit of a past,” proceeded to yell at Hoskins as he lay on the ground after the slide. Tensions escalated, the benches cleared, McNeil continued to holler words you won’t see in the Bible at Hoskins, and the situation culminated with Hoskins making a crybaby motion at McNeil from the Brewers’ dugout, which was just a terrific image that is sure to be turned into a meme (meme’d? memed? Not sure of the nomenclature here. It will be on the internet and used when someone’s being a bellyacher, is my point).
Hoskins’ slide didn’t look particularly great in real time; when I saw it, I’m pretty sure I audibly said something along the lines of “Ooo boy.” Did he mean to slide into McNeil? Who knows? I’m not especially tuned into the NL East rivalry scene, but if this series proved anything, it’s that Mets fans don’t have a lot of love for the former Phillie. Each time Hoskins stepped up to the plate, Citi Field erupted into a chorus of boos. Hoskins, however, didn’t seem to mind, and he got the last laugh: he went yard once and drove in four runs in the Crew’s win the following day, a game Mets pitcher Yohan Ramírez was ejected from after throwing behind Hoskins while he was at the plate.
Yelich and Turang are off to hot starts
Hoskins isn’t the only Brewer who put in work with his bat in New York.
Veteran outfielder Christian Yelich started off his seventh season as a Brewer in classic fashion. In the fourth inning on Opening Day, the lefty ripped a solo shot to right, and he went 3-4 on the day with a run scored. Yeli kept the pedal down on Saturday, going 2-5 with an RBI. Yelich didn’t log a hit on Sunday, but he drew two walks, stole two bases, and scored a run.
Second-year second baseman Brice Turang had at least one hit in each game against the Mets. Although he wasn’t in the starting lineup on Opening Day, he had one hit on a pair of at-bats. On Saturday, Turang had two hits in five plate appearances and three stolen bases, and he wrapped up the series on Sunday by going 2-4 for with a double, scoring a run, and swiping a bag.
What’s on deck
The Crew is set to make their 2024 American Family Field debut with a two-game home series against the Minnesota Twins Tuesday and Wednesday.
The Seattle Mariners will come to Milwaukee for a three-game stretch to wrap up the week before the Brewers hit the road to take on the Cincinnati Reds and the Baltimore Orioles next week.
Jalen’s columns, “The Free Play” and “Movies You Gotta See,” can be found online at www.medium.com/@jalenmaki.