Brewers have worrisome update on Christian Yelich back injury

Christian Yelich has not played since Apr. 11, and it sounds like the Milwaukee Brewers outfielder isn’t getting much closer to a return.

Brewers manager Craig Counsell admitted Saturday that Yelich’s recovery from a back injury has hit a “plateau” after the outfielder did some work in the batting cage on Friday, and is expected to undergo an MRI.

“With Christian, unfortunately, we’ve hit a bit of a plateau here,” Counsell said, via Adam McCalvy of MLB.com. “Nothing bad happened [Friday]. He did the day of work that we were expecting. We’re just at a plateau so we are just trying to rule everything out and see if we can get another piece of information.

“It’s frustrating for Christian. He’s frustrated. So, we’re trying to rule everything out and get as many answers as we can.”

Yelich was eligible to come off the 10-day IL on Saturday, but there was no sign of when he might be activated and able to play again. That’s a bit worrisome when it was initially expected that a simple week and a half of rest would help Yelich get past the back stiffness he’s been experiencing.

Yelich was off to a 10-for-30 start before landing on the IL. Maybe it’s time for him to bring back the lucky gum.