Jackson Chourio’s Opening Day was memorable for all the wrong reasons. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
In the lingo of Jackson Chourio’s generation: it be like that sometimes.
Chourio opened his second season in the major leagues in maddening fashion, striking out a career-high five times in the Milwaukee Brewers’ 4-2 Opening Day loss at Yankee Stadium.
If anything, Chourio’s day served to reinforce the other three true outcomes of baseball:
- Spring Training stats don’t mean a thing
- Opening Day is just one game out of 162
- Even the best young players are going to have frustrating days
Chourio was Milwaukee’s hottest batter in spring slashing .469/.509/.714 with a home run, eight RBIs and a 1.223 OPS in 49 at-bats, and was looking to build off a phenomenal rookie season with a strong start in 2025.
Thursday, though, was anything but.
His no-good, very bad day started when whiffed on an 0-2 slider down and in to open the game, then continued when he missed a 2-2 changeup in the third and got worse in the fifth when Yankees starter Carlos Rodón threw another 0-2 slider in the very same spot to get Chourio a third time.
After an 84.5 MPH splitter from Mark Leiter gave Chourio is career-high fourth strikeout of the day in the seventh, Chourio still had a chance to redeem himself in the ninth but came up empty on a 3-2 changeup to cap off his 0-for-5 day.
A frustrating day, to be sure, but one Milwaukee manager Pat Murphy is confident Chourio will learn from.
“They pitched him really tough so credit the Yankees pitchers,” Murphy told reporters after the game. “The game is going to keep humbling him. You’ve got to just keep staying after it because thats what the game does, it keeps humbling.
History suggest Chourio will turn it around quickly.
His ability to make quick adjustments is one of the primary reasons he bolted up the ranks of Milwaukee’s minor-league system and landed a record-setting 8-year, $82 million contract before even participating in big-league spring training for the first time.
It’s also how he bounced back from an abysmal start to his career to become a 20/20 player and the Brewers hottest hitter heading into their NL Wild Card series against the Mets last October.
“This is something he has to go through,” Murphy said. “He killed it in spring training, hitting balls everywhere — it was like he wasn’t even trying — then the intensity got turned up, the situation changed and guys are saying ‘I’m not going to throw Jackson a heater down the middle’ but he’ll respond to this.”
And if it’s any consolation for the young slugger, he wasn’t the only Brewers star to struggle after putting up gaudy spring training numbers.
Along Chourio, Christian Yelich, William Contreras and Rhys Hoskins combined bat .385 (62-for-161) with six home runs and 37 RBIs during Spring Training but batting behind him Thursday, the trio combined to go 0-for-10 with four more strikeouts.
“Their pitching staff was really, really good today,” Murphy said. “They kept us in check.
Not all of the Brewers red-hot springs hitters cooled off after leaving Arizona: infielder Vinny Capra, who played his way onto his first Opening Day roster with six home runs and a 1.087 spring OPS, belted his first career home run in the third inning, a leadoff shot off Rodón.
“I thought it was a pretty special moment,” Capra said. “First at-bat, to do what you wanted to do. Stuck to the plan, and it kind of ended up working out.”
The Brewers get Friday off before resuming their season-opening series Saturday at Yankee stadium and return to Milwaukee to open the home portion of their 2025 schedule Monday afternoon at American Family Field.
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