Legacy in Progress: Jackson Chourio Back in Brewers Lineup, Building a Playoff Legend at Age 21

It's the highest compliment I can pay to a player: watching Jackson Chourio play ball puts me in mind of Roberto Clemente. Really, you can draw threads that connect Chourio to any of the three great right-hitting, slashing, power-and-speed outfield dynamos who changed baseball forever in the 1950s, and perhaps the most salient for a 21-year-old playing in Milwaukee is not Clemente, but Henry Aaron. It's Clemente, though, whose blend of a powerful frame and blazing speed (sometimes more than his game can even make use of) Chourio most vividly evokes.

Now, Chourio is in the process of building a postseason legacy worthy of that mantle (not Mantle, but, you get it). Among the many incredible facts about his career, one of the most impressive is that Clemente played in 14 career World Series games, leading the Pirates to seven-game wins in both 1960 and 1971—and had at least one hit in all 14 of those contests. Chourio has yet to win even one playoff series, but in four playoff games as a member of the Crew, he's reached base at least twice in all four. Famously, he hit two home runs in Game 2 of the Wild Card Series last fall. In Game 1 of the NLDS against the rival Cubs on Saturday night, he became the first player ever to record three hits in the first two innings of a playoff game—but in beating out the third, an infield hit down the line behind third base, he seemed to tweak the same hamstring he strained in late July, costing him a month of his somewhat fraught sophomore season.

Initially, nothing about it augured well. Chourio's body language looked frustrated, if not defeated, as he headed to the clubhouse. Pat Murphy sounded worried that Chourio might have suffered another fairly major setback, which could certainly have ended his season. Instead, barely 50 hours later, he was included on the team's lineup card. He'll lead off again Monday night, against Shota Imanaga and the Cubs.

Few fan bases love a happy trooper more than Wisconsin's. Chourio is proving to be not only a budding superstar with a flair for the big moment, but a gamer. He's going to be in there if it's at all possible, and while he didn't look fully healthy when testing the hamstring Sunday, nor did he look truly compromised. He almost certainly has a new strain in the hamstring, but it's minor enough that the MRI was considered "inconclusive". In this day and age, teams are usually very cautious with soft-tissue injuries, but it's not so long ago that players soldiered on when they had a chance to play in October, even if it came with limitations or risks. To be sure, plenty of them still do, sometimes without letting anyone know. Chourio suffered a real injury, though, and won't even miss a game as a result of it.

Iin 1997, Bobby Bonilla of the Marlins was dealing with a hamstring strain the severity of which would surely sideline almost anyone now. Still, he played in all seven games. He wasn't very good (he batted .207, with just one extra-base hit, and had to be subbed out in Game 5), but he was out there. That's the ethos Chourio has now embraced. He's burnishing a terrific legacy, for a player still well shy of his 22nd birthday. 

There are only 16 players in Brewers history with more postseason hits than the eight Chourio has already collected. He's also drawn a walk, and in 15 plate appearances, he's only struck out once. Whether he can keep dominating that way or not, his eagerness to take the field despite dealing with an injury adds a new wrinkle to the storybook career he's attempting to author. It's an amazing moment, infusing new energy into the team and the fan base as they try to banish the Cubs from the postseason and advance to their first NLCS since 2018.