Willy Adames avoids the injured list – for now, at least – while Andrew McCutchen nears a return to the Brewers lineup
Curt Hogg
The Milwaukee Brewers are taking the patient approach with a pair of potential returning players and middle-of-the-order bats.
Willy Adames saw his goal of playing in 162 games slashed Monday night as he sat out with a left high ankle sprain, but he isn't ready to go on the injured list just yet.
Adames arrived at American Family Field on Tuesday and reported feeling much improved from the day prior, when he missed his first game of the season and was examined by team doctors. Given that positive news, the Brewers will play the wait-and-see game over the next couple of days with their starting shortstop.
“He came in today better and so that’s kind of what we’re thinking is let’s try to give him another day and see where this takes us," manager Craig Counsell said before Brewers played the Atlanta Braves. "We can do it today. We’d like to give him a shot. It’s not like he’s playing tomorrow, but I think he improved kind of from yesterday to today, so we feel like that warrants us just postponing the decision for another day.”
Adames injured the ankle on a slide into home plate Sunday in Miami. He attempted to play through it, taking the field on defense the following half-inning but was removed from the game after that. He won't be in the lineup for either of the Brewers next two games, meaning Saturday is a best-case scenario for a return.
Ever the energetic optimist, that's what Adames is hoping for.
"I'm always going to want to be on the field, man," he said. "That's why we are working hard on it, to see. If it's better, then I can go out there and do my best. ... I love to be on the field and I don't want to go on the IL, so we are going to continue to work on it. I am going to put 200% effort on it to see if we can get it right. As soon as I can, that's my mentality."
Entering games Tuesday, Adames was tied with teammate Hunter Renfroe and three other players for the National League lead with nine home runs. The Brewers also miss his defense at shortstop in his absence. Adames’ three outs above average, per Statcast, ranked second among big-league shortstops.
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Luis Urias will slide over from third base to get the bulk of innings at short while Adames is out of the lineup with Jace Peterson and Mike Brosseau forming a platoon at third.
The move marks only the second time in Adames' major-league career he has gone on the injured list. He missed 15 days in September 2021 with a left quad strain.
When he's playing, Adames can be seen regularly bouncing around the dugout and laughing. What's the human sparkplug like when he has to sit out instead?
"Bored," Adames said. "I get in a bad mood when I can't play. That's why I always want to be out there. Obviously I want to support my teammates, so I go out there when I can and try to support them and show them that I am there for them."
Andrew McCutchen nearing return
If you asked Brewers designated hitter Andrew McCutchen, he would have been ready to rock and roll the moment he arrived at American Family Field after clearing COVID-19 protocols.
The Brewers, however, weren't quite ready to activate McCutchen from the COVID injured list Tuesday, opting instead to ramp him back up after he missed 10 games.
He went through a series of baseball workouts Tuesday and will be activated before either Wednesday or Friday's game. The Brewers are off Thursday.
"Quite frankly, I’m ready to go today but that’s just me," McCutchen said. "That’s my mentality. When I was five days into it I was like ‘I’m ready to play, come on, let’s go.’ That’ s just the way that I am."
Said Counsell: “Andrew just needs to run around and do baseball things. We’ll get together after today and see where he’s at. To me, this is like just make sure he has enough time on the field to feel prepared to play in a game.”
The virus hit McCutchen hard as he quarantined by himself in a hotel room.
"I didn’t do anything," McCutchen said. "I was in the hotel. I couldn’t do anything. Every possible thing you can have with COVID, I had, except for COVID toes. Past that, I didn’t feel very good. You can probably hear it in my speech, I’m still congested. I’m negative, but it still has its effects and it takes some time to feeling like yourself."
To stay busy, McCutchen paced around the room more times than he cared to count, got some exercise with pushups and squats as much as he could and watched lots of YouTube videos. He also followed along closely with each Brewers game and live-tweeted during most of them; he even strongly considered going live on Instagram to interact with fans during a game.
"It felt a lot longer than 10 days, I’ll tell you that much," McCutchen said of how the time alone went. "The whole process was a really slow process. I pride myself on being in the lineup every single day. Sometimes there are some things you can’t control."