Amid all the ecstasy of the Milwaukee Brewers' rollicking 9-3 win over the Chicago Cubs in NLDS Game 1 on Saturday, the injury to Jackson Chourio was the lone fly in the ointment. Milwaukee's dynamic young outfielder was forced to leave the game in the top of the second inning after beating out an infield single — his third hit of the game already, as he spearheaded the Brewers' early offensive outburst.
Seeing a player of Chourio's caliber go down is always cause for anxiety. But the fact that Chourio was diagnosed with a strain of the same hamstring that landed him on the IL earlier this season had everybody in Wisconsin on high alert.
The good news is that, at least according to Chourio, this injury isn't nearly as serious as the first one. “We’re still waiting [on the diagnosis]," he told reporters after Game 1. "But physically I feel good, and feel like I’m in a position where I’m ready to keep going and keep competing.”
The not-so-good news is that Chourio's MRI came back "inconclusive," according to manager Pat Murphy. Understandably, he wants to play as much as humanly possible, so you can understand why he was itching to downplay the situation. But Murphy, was far more ambivalent when asked about his young star ahead of Game 2.
“I can't give you a definitive, but I know that we're going to test some things today," Murphy told FanSided MLB insider Robert Murray. "He's going to be out there today. I don't know that he'll do much, but the MRI came back and it's inconclusive ... It's not a serious hamstring strain, but it's not necessarily something that won't limit him. He's going to go through some testing, and if he feels anything, we're going to shut it down.”
All of which now presents Milwaukee with a conundrum: How big of a risk are you willing to take with Chourio's health?
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Brewers have a very difficult decision to make with Jackson Chourio
It would be one thing if this were simply a matter of pain tolerance. But hamstring strains are very much an injury that can be made worse; if Chourio is able to talk his way back onto the field, who knows whether the strain will get more severe — or even turn into a full-on tear — if he tries to bust it out of the box or chase down a fly ball in the gap?
Then again, it's very hard to turn down the opportunity to pencil Chourio into the lineup if he's available. He's the most explosive position player the Brewers have, the guy who sets the tone at the top of the order, and Milwaukee's go-go offensive approach will take a real hit if he's not able to go. If he tests out well enough, and tells the team that he can run without too much discomfort, the specter of another early postseason flameout (to the hated Cubs, no less) might be enough to talk the Brewers into a risky decision.
And it's hard to count on Chourio's own sense of his physical well-being. He's not even 22 yet, after all, and you know he wants to erase the memory of last year's Wild Card loss to the New York Mets as quickly as possible. The prudent thing to do would probably be to put him on the shelf for at least the rest of this series, giving him a solid week to get treatment and (hopefully) come back in the NLCS ready to roll. But Milwaukee's playoff ghosts might not allow it, and it's impossible to know just how much the team is risking by letting him play.