Call me the eternal optimist or a fan that thinks the last week of the Brewers season was what I called it a couple weeks back, a market correction. That's why I'm not worried about this team going forward to not only clinch the National League Central title and beyond into the NL Divisional Series.
And before you jump on me for blindly thinking like this, I'll tell you why. Of course there's Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder, a healthy Rickie Weeks getting healthy and back in his groove, but most importantly a steady pitching staff that has been the backbone of this team all year.
Yes there have been (and almost always are) ups and downs over the course of a baseball season. That has certainly been the case for the Brewers, but over the last week to 10 days, it has been a bit of feast or famine for this Brewers team as it works itself out of the funk it was in against the Cardinals and Phillies at the start of the month.
The biggest key I can take out of the funk and even the great weekend showing in Cincinnati was that while Braun and Fielder have played well, most would agree they are not on the tears we saw them on at times during the season. These things go in cycles and you'd have to think things are coming back toward at upswing at the right time. Last Tuesday night's game against the Rockies showed what both mean to this team, combining to homer for both of the team's runs that led to the dramatic walk-off victory (Did you see us in the 223?). The two of them getting hot at the right time, in the playoffs no less would make this team almost unstoppable. While that may be a bit of me wishing, I wouldn't put it out of the realm of possibility as niether have shown signs of cracking under the pressure of clinching a division title in this race.
There are no trades that could help a team looking into the playoffs into September, but that's what the return of Rickie Weeks from the disabled list feels like for this Brewers team. Sure this team went on it's great 27-5 run while he was on the DL, but the offense was not what it was with him in it as the pitching carried this team. Manager Ron Roenicke will tell you this team needs Weeks if it wants to make noise in the playoffs.
Weeks finally played his first full game since coming off the DL Monday night and said he felt pretty good about things. It's been a slow process, but you can see he's starting to get his bearings back at the plate and will serve as great protection to Braun and Fielder hitting out of the No. 5 spot in the lineup with his power and speed that could set the table for the bottom half of the order to do some damage.
Of course a team is only as good as it's starting pitcher and this season has shown what that looks like in Milwaukee for the first time in a long time. Yovani Gallardo, Zack Greinke, Shaun Marcum, Randy Wolf and even Chris Narveson were the big part of the late July-August push that put this team where it is now. While they've had a couple hiccups in recent weeks, I'd give them a couple passes as you'd expect this offense to back them with a couple runs each night, so it's not all their fault for a couple of the losses, you just want them to stay consistent and for much of the last week, the top four especially have been spot on. There really isn't much question as to whether they can keep it up because they have for the entire second half of the season.
This team has all the tools it needs to be successful this postseason. The next week will be a bit of preparation for that as I'd expect Roenicke to tweak the pitching rotation to line things up for the NLDS, but playing meaningful games up until the final day of the season will pay dividends. Should be fun to watch unfold.
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