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It’s tough luck that Jackson Chourio has to share a rookie season with Paul Skenes and Jackson Merrill. Nevertheless, the first-year Milwaukee Brewer is trying to make a late push in the National League Rookie of the Year race.
Even if he’s not successful in ultimately claiming the award, it’s been awfully fun watching him try.
Chourio added to his memorable run on Monday, September 2 with a grand slam in the sixth inning of Milwaukee’s game against the St. Louis Cardinals. His shot put the Brewers up 9-3, which wound up being the final score of the crucial game between division rivals.
As Jeff Passan of ESPN pointed out, Chourio’s red-hot rookie season has been especially blistering in the last three months. In that time, he’s hitting .319 (seventh in MLB) with a .372 OBP (12th), and .915 OPS (12th). He also has 13 home runs and 51 RBI in that time.
And as Passan reminded us all, Chourio won’t turn 21 until Spring Training 2025.
Did Jackson Chourio Call His Grand Slam?
Chourio isn’t the first player to ever call his own shot. He may be the first, however, to call his own grand slam with the bases empty, before the exact inning that he did it.
That is, if his Brewers teammates are to be believed. MLB.com’s Adam McCalvy says Frankie Montas and his teammates “swear” that before the sixth inning, Chourio said the following:
“I’m going to get an at-bat with the bases loaded and I’m going to hit a grand slam.”
That’s exactly what happened.
“I think I was just messing with them.” Chourio said after the game.
Willy Adames backed up Montas’ account.
“It was incredible,” Adames said. “That’s why he was pointing to me and Frankie. We were talking about it and he was like, ‘I’m going to hit it.’ And he did it. I was like, ‘Oh my God, he really did it.’”
Jackson Chourio’s Greatest Moments So Far
In 123 Major League Games, all this season, Chourio is hitting .276 with 17 home runs and 3.3 bWAR. Impressive numbers for a rookie — even one who came into the season as one of the top prospects in baseball.
But the numbers only tell part of the story. 17 home runs won’t blow anyone away as a stat, but the blasts themselves have been majestic. Take his 449-foot moonshot he hit last week that hit the scoreboard at American Family Field, taking out a panel along the way. That made him one of only four players in the Statcast era to hit a home run that distance or farther before his age 21 season.
A few weeks earlier on August 8, he became the youngest player in Brewers history to have a multi-home run game, eclipsing one-time career Home Run King Hank Aaron.
Chourio hit .321 in August and finished with five homers and 19 RBI — both season highs for one month. He almost finished August on a low note, however, when he needed to be helped off the field with an ankle injury. While the team initially feared the injury could end his season, Chourio played the next day.
That day, August 31, his ninth-inning home run turned a 4-4 tie into a 5-4 Brewers road win over the Cincinnati Reds, sending him into September on a high note.
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