Now 9 losses to work with

[naivin]

It continues to look as if 85 or 86 wins (max) will win the NL Central. That gives the Brewers 9 or 10 losses to work with the rest of the way. Not sure they are capable of pulling that off, but with the rotation looking better of late, and Weeks and Hall in particular hitting again, 16-10 seems far from impossible. Beat Houston!

[Ennder]

I am confident that the Cubs will lose that extra game and that the Cardinals won't gain ground. That just means we need to play 1 game better than the Cubs to force a playoff.

 

Of course I was confident we'd take 2 of 3 vs the Giants and we got swept, so what do I know!

 

Over a month long of baseball pretty much anything can happen, the Pirates can lead the league in HR's for a month as an example, the Cubs can post a .700 OPS and still have a winning record, the Royals can play .600 ball. From this point on anything can happen. Every team that is within 3 or 4 games of a playoff spot still has a good shot if they can just step it up for one month.

[T B0NE 10]

i dont want a playoff...i hate the idea of it

[bacon06]

A playoff worked in Major League. And Major League was filmed in Milwaukee. I think the forces are with the Brewers.

 

I think the Brewers are stepping up their game. Ever since the return of Sheets, the team has the look that they are more focused and driving towards the playoffs. It seems like every player is stepping up and really giving their best.

[LouisEly]

STL just had two huge losses - Rolen and Encarnacion. I wouldn't wish what happened to Encarnacion on anyone, even a Cub. Supposedly Rolen is done for the year also. Those are the big losses the Brewers need to avoid.

 

Other than that, their next 15 games are against some of the league's worst - vs. HOU, at CIN, at PIT, vs CIN, at HOU. They need to show up at PITT and CIN, something they haven't done this year. They need to take at least 10 of 15 from those bottom-feeders.

[clancyphile]

But we need the Cubs to choke... and today, they stormed back.

 

We needed to sweep them at Wrigley and didn't, now the Brewers have no margin for error.

[DHonks]

The Cubs have been amazing at winning when down after 6 or 7, and what's especially crazy is that many of the wins have been started by the lesser players.

 

What is really encouraging is that our rotation looks solid again. No longer are Vargas and Cappy in there. Instead, we just threw Bush (our best 2nd half starter this year) and Suppan (3 or 4 straight solid outings), yet we're throwing Sheets, Villanueva, and Gallardo at the Astros. Really, it's nice when once again the only time I feel a bit worried about our starter is when Suppan throws, yet he's doing as was expected. It was rough for so long with Cappy and Vargas in there, knowing that they could be throwing a 5 inning no hitter on 75 pitches and staked to a 5 run lead. Then, before we know what happened, the game might be tied again.

[Jimbo]

Would there be a one-game playoff? I thought head-to-head would be used as a tie-breaker.

[Ennder]

Nope they play a tie breaker game. If one team is going to win the division and the other is going to get the wild card it is decided by H2H record.

[naivin]

McClung, Turnbow, Yost, Aquino all make their presence felt...and we're down to

 

http://l.yimg.com/www.flickr.com/images/spaceball.gifhttp://l.yimg.com/www.flickr.com/images/spaceball.gifhttp://images.jupiterimages.com/common/detail/18/73/23107318.jpg