MLB WORLD SERIES: RAYS VS BREWERS

October 28, 2026

Christian Yellich

Tropicana Field

Milwaukee Brewers

Pregame 5 Press Conference

Q. Cooper Pratt and just how far he's come, especially at the plate, how impressed were you with his performance yesterday, and what have you seen from the rookie and showing up?

CHRISTIAN YELICH: I've been impressed with him all season. I hadn't seen him play a whole lot until he got called up, just a few times in Spring Training. Everybody was really talking about his glove, him coming up, but he can really hit. He's got some really good at-bats. He's gotten some big hits during the season for us, and postseason obviously had a couple of big ones last night.

Q. Is it hard to sleep last night after a game where you're so close to your ultimate goal, or is it easy because it was such a long game and took so long and went late into the night/morning?

CHRISTIAN YELICH: Yeah, you don't get home until pretty late, long game. You're tired. You sleep fine. Like, the game didn't go our way. That's part of it. It's happened a bunch of times throughout the year, and you just move on and come here today ready to go.

Q. We've talked a lot about the fans that are here taking it all in, but how about the Brewers employees that flew down with the team to take in this series? A lot of long-tenured people that work for the Brewers organization able to be here with you guys. What's it like for you as players to see them around this ballpark?

CHRISTIAN YELICH: It's cool they get to experience the World Series also. I don't know how many came, but I know a lot came. Just cool that the organization gets to experience that together.

Q. That resilience that you're talking about where you lose a tough game, to say the least, last night and just come back to play, for you has that been a learned skill throughout your career? Was there a time earlier in your career that you may have reacted to being three outs away from winning the World Series not as well as maybe you and the rest of your guys did last night?

CHRISTIAN YELICH: Once it happens and it's over, there's nothing you can do about it. You can't look back on it. You can't second-guess it. You've got to flush it. You can't come here today -- and nobody has come here today with a different outlook.

It's win the game tonight the same as it's been the entire year. You show up at the field with a chance to win, and that's what we do. You focus on the present, where you're at today, and go from there and try to win the game.

Q. After what happened last night, talk about the character, the resiliency of your club a little bit.

CHRISTIAN YELICH: You've got to stay together in those moments. It's obviously not ideal. It's not what anybody wants to happen or what you want to see. The reality is like sometimes that just happens. The game doesn't cooperate. You're going to have to overcome hard things. You're going to have to get through some adversity.

Last night was certainly that. You're not going to deny that or say that didn't suck. Yeah, it sucks. But once it's over, it's over. Once you get home and you wake up this morning, you've got a new day with a chance to play a game tonight and you need to focus on winning.

We've got a great opportunity tonight, and you've got to do a lot of things well tonight to win. You feel a lot better about it after that.

Q. Christian, you're a really good base runner. That was already proven in the fifth inning of Game 3. But how much do you also trust a guy like Matt Erickson where he just seems to have an uncanny ability to know when to send you guys and what to do in certain situations, your third base coach?

CHRISTIAN YELICH: Yeah, that's why they're there. If he's telling you to go, you've got to go. We've done it all year, and he's made some good judgments on tough balls.

Yeah, listen to your base coaches, right? If they tell you to go, go. If they tell you to stop, better stop.

Q. If you guys win the World Series, do you think it changes the legacy of this franchise or the image of it? We've seen -- you know, Atlanta won 14 straight division titles, the Dodgers have -- you guys have been in the playoffs 8 of the last 9 years now.

CHRISTIAN YELICH: Yeah, of course. I think any time you win a World Series, it definitely changes a place at least a little bit. You go from not having any championships to having one. That would be obviously a big step for our organization. It's been a goal for some time.

Q. Whether this ends tonight or this weekend, these could be the last games in a long time if there's a lengthy stoppage. For fans who get angry at both sides, what do you say to persuade them to come back when the game is resumed?

CHRISTIAN YELICH: To be honest, we've just been focused on the World Series and playing in this game. Obviously there's going to be a lot of talk this off-season about what's going to happen. It's definitely out of my personal control about what happens this off-season.

Obviously you'd love to see the game be in a good spot and continue to be played. I think the game's in a great spot right now with a lot of people tuned in, a lot of popularity, a lot of great players out there. It would obviously be a shame if we miss time, but we'll have plenty of time this off-season to talk about it. Myself and definitely our group have got a couple other things in front of us right now.

Q. What has impressed you about the way Jacob Misiorowski has turned into or taken on the role of your No. 1 starter, your ace, the guy you want on the mound?

CHRISTIAN YELICH: Yeah, he's come a long way. He's come a long way since last year when he was a young kid with a lot of ability and a lot of natural talent. Anybody could see that looking at the radar gun and kind of what he can do.

I think he's come a long way learning himself as a pitcher and learning how to pitch and he's still learning, I think, in a lot of ways. But he's matured a bit. He's gotten to know himself a lot. He's gotten confident. And he continues to get better, which is kind of crazy from stuff he's done.

But that's Major League Baseball. You've got to always continue to try to better yourself and make progress no matter how much success or lack thereof that you've had. You always have to improve, and he's done a great job doing that.

Q. Obviously now you have the C on your chest. You're considered a leader in this room. When did you start to feel like a leader in this kind of time that you've been with the Brewers? Obviously when you got here, you were younger. Was there a moment where it flipped and you looked around and thought, oh, I'm kind of the guy now?

CHRISTIAN YELICH: No, I don't think you have a moment or make a conscious decision to be like, all right, I have to do this. I think we've got a lot of guys that lead in that room. I've just been here a long time. Myself and Woody have been here probably the longest.

When you've got a lot of young guys, you've experienced a lot of things that they're experiencing for the first time, and you can kind of see yourself in their shoes and in their position and what it felt like when you were that age or you were going through that for the first time. And really just talk to them or ask them questions or they'll ask you questions and kind of just help them navigate some of those challenges and situations that you might come across in the Big Leagues for the first time.

Q. Have you enjoyed that, being a leader, and how has that maybe changed your relationship with work?

CHRISTIAN YELICH: I like helping people. I don't look at it as being a leader, you have to do that. I enjoy helping guys and trying to impact people in a positive way.

It takes the attention off you. You can make an impact on people without your performance on the field. I'm not saying I don't care. Obviously I care about my performance on the field. You can impact people in multiple ways and help out and leave the game and the clubhouse and someone's career in a better place than when you found it.

People certainly did that for me, and it's nice to be able to give back too.

Q. Entering the series there was a lot of talk about the markets being represented in this matchup and hand wringing about how many people would be watching on television and that kind of thing. I know you guys don't have time to worry about television ratings right now, but early reports are the viewership is really strong. What do you think that says about not just the style of baseball that both of these teams play, but also the fact that this is a matchup between the best team in each league for the championship?

CHRISTIAN YELICH: I would hope people were tuned into the World Series. It just means that people enjoy the sport of baseball. They enjoy where the sport is, the kind of players that are playing in the sport. I think that goes far beyond just the World Series.

I think it's the regular season product, the stars you have in the game. Obviously the WBC has helped over the years, how awesome that's been. The last few postseasons have been really good. It's just good baseball between two good teams. If you're a fan of the game and you enjoy watching baseball, regardless of where the teams are from or, quote/unquote, market size, I still would hope it's appealing to people, and I certainly think it is.

Q. Over your time in the game, have you come to understand how much the Brewers mean to people out there, and how does it make you feel when maybe you hear stories of just how important the baseball team is to your community?

CHRISTIAN YELICH: It's been awesome to see. It's been pretty evident this month about how much the fans have gotten behind this team, the fan support that we've had at the road venues, at our home ballpark. People just coming up to you and telling you what the team means to them and how awesome and how much fun and memories they've made over the years watching the Brewers and getting to go to games.

I've said it a couple times this week: We don't take that lightly as a team. We understand that when we play well, it creates memories for people and makes people happy.

Q. As you guys have developed the team identity style that you play, the standards that you've set, wondering how you see the role of players in the clubhouse setting the parameters around that versus the coaches and staff setting the parameters for that?

CHRISTIAN YELICH: I think it's both. It starts with you want to be a winning team and you want to win games. You have to do certain things in order to make that happen. That's just -- the reality of the sport of baseball is if you want to be a good team, there's certain non-negotiables, and everybody acknowledges that. Then once you make the commitment that you want to be a winning team and you want to be in the World Series and you want to win the World Series, then everything after that is geared towards that goal.

So when there's tough conversations or you're the guy that's being criticized or you're the guy that messes up and we have to talk about it, nobody's feelings get hurt because it's all geared towards a bigger goal. You can make that commitment as a group and have the buy-in from everybody, and it's well documented at this point, Murph's standards and expectations for everybody.

I think we have those standards and expectations for ourselves too. Then it becomes easy. It's just all geared towards a bigger common goal, and it makes creating those expectations a lot easier when everybody shares that.

Q. What's it like within the clubhouse when you guys know you have Miz going to the mound that day? Especially for a game that could clinch a World Series?

CHRISTIAN YELICH: Yeah, we've liked our chances all year when he's been out there. He's proven that he's one of the better pitchers in the game. We're facing one of the better pitchers in the game tonight too from their side. That's what the World Series is all about, best on best. Got to find a way to win a game.

Q. Christian, there's so much change in baseball, but if you think about your tenure with the front office ownership, even a lot of the business side people, you've known them for your whole time as a Brewer, how has that influenced your time, and how do you think that's influenced the culture you're talking about in the clubhouse?

CHRISTIAN YELICH: It just creates relationships and you have like common people that you see around all the time and share good memories, tough memories. We've had both of those over the years here.

I think it creates a closeness and a togetherness and a family atmosphere, for lack of a better term. That's what it kind of feels like here. They take really good care of you as a player here in this organization. I think it's a big reason why if you ask a lot of players who have played here, they speak pretty fondly of their time in Milwaukee.

That comes from ownership to the clubhouse staff to everybody behind the scenes that does a great job of trying to help put the best product that you can on the field. And that helps with helping players and helping families and navigating a lot of things that you don't see on the field. They do a tremendous job of that here. That's been a big part of it too.

Q. I think it's about 99 percent of the players on both teams have not been to a World Series before this. I'm just wondering if the experience of being in the series has been everything that you thought it would be? Has it been more than you thought it would be? Is there anything that surprised you?

CHRISTIAN YELICH: Yeah, I think it's about what you would expect. There's a lot of you guys here, and the atmospheres are great. You know you're getting into that when you're going to the World Series.

I think an underrated part of it is when the game starts, it's still a game. It's still the game of baseball. You have all this stuff, you have the extra media attention, you have the pageantry pregame and all that. But once the first pitch is thrown, it's still the same game that you've played since February and the same things decide these games that decided those games.

I think that's been one thing that's kind of stuck out. Yeah, it just feels like a baseball game once things get started.

A. What was your process like last year when the season ended? After you leave L.A., do you go back and watch those games at all? Do you just try to kind of separate yourself from the job?

CHRISTIAN YELICH: I didn't watch any of the games from last year. Pretty good view the first time through, and it didn't go too good. It was just like one of those where you just kind of chalk it up. It is what it is at that point. Nothing you can do about it.

Flush it and get ready for the following year. Take a little time off, let your body heal up from whatever had been going on for the last few months, and get back to the off-season stuff a few weeks later and ramp up for Spring Training.

It's kind of just the cycle that you're on as an athlete. That's kind of what happened last year.

Q. Do you feel it helps you when you face a pitcher several times in a short span, like with the bullpen and with Rasmussen tonight, or is that less important in the era of Trajekt?

CHRISTIAN YELICH: I think it's less important than if you've never faced a guy before. When you've never faced a guy before, it's a little tougher because you don't have anything to draw back on. If you faced a guy, it doesn't really matter if it was a few days ago, a few weeks ago, a month ago, you have that kind of experience, and I'm sure they have the same with you.

When you've never faced a guy before, it's a little tougher. Especially when they have really good stuff, it just makes the at-bat the first time through a little bit more difficult because you kind of have to navigate it on the fly and you can see the video and see the metrics on things.

Until you're actually in there, it's not always that way, but sometimes it can make it more difficult.