“The expectation now is to win.”
Real words spoken by Ryan Braun.
Also the same words that I used to kick off season five of the Sunday Cycle back on March 29, 2018, on Opening Day of the 2018 regular season.
Those words, I argued, carried an incredible amount of a significance, especially when they were reiterated and doubled by GM David Stearns, Manager Craig Counsell, and Principle Owner Mark Attanasio. There was no question about it: the expectation on Opening Day was to win. The rebuild was over just three years after it began. Anything short of a postseason berth would be considered a failure.
Man, oh man… did they win. And win. And win. 96 in total – tied for the most in franchise history.
It’s really difficult to describe a season’s worth of emotions that led up to the Brewers winning game 163 today vs the Cubs to not only clinch the NL Central, but home field advantage throughout the 2018 postseason. To watch a team that has been devoid of postseason success for the majority of my life go to Wrigley field and snatch the NL Central crown from the Cubs is just the coolest thing in the world. To watch this team rattle off eight straight wins after being written off in the NL Central race by everyone (except me) was incredible. To be a part of a sellout Miller Park crowd on Saturday night with my wife, who has never been a part of a playoff atmosphere at a baseball game, was so cool for me. I’ll remember this past week for the rest of my life, and we really haven’t even scratched the surface yet.
I wrote about a couple of common themes over the course of my 26 Sunday Cycles this season. One of them in particular proved critical to the Brewer’s September push: they peaked at the right time. April and May featured magic and mess. June challenged the Brewer’s depth with injuries to key players. July featured the Brewers worst stretch of games, capped off by a five game series sweep at the hands of the Pirates and a disastrous All-Star Break. Early August was about the deadline- who they got, who they didn’t. Why didn’t they get a starting pitcher? Why did they get Jonathan Schoop?
The tide turned twice from there. It happened first on August 20th, when the Brewers began a run where they would win seven straight series, including two against the Cubs. That stretch of games featured two walk off wins (1 and 2), and brought them within a game of the Cubs: it was that stretch of games where this team started to realize they had the depth to beat anyone on any given day. They only swept one team during that run, a miserable Giants team. They were playing good baseball, but they weren’t gaining ground in the Central. Then the tide turned once more.
The Brewers finally peaked. It started last Sunday, when they beat the Pirates in Pittsburgh to stay within 2.5 games of the Cubs with six left to play. They’d go on to win all six, and then a seventh, to finish the season on an 8-0 run and win just their second Division title in my life time. Christian Yelich went unconscious – ending any debate surrounding the NL MVP award. He’ll finish with the first batting title in Brewer’s franchise history – a season that also earned him (or his jersey, rather) a spot on top of the old Bob Petrie Christmas list.
This lineup looks so scary good and deep that the Brewers will be forced to keep real offensive threats off their postseason roster. Craig Counsell will be the NL Manager of the Year, given that every move he’s made this month is now validated and vindicated. He’s managed the bullpen (almost) perfectly, and he got big innings from his starters when he needed them the most. He, along with the entire Brewers #sabermetrics team, may have laid the groundwork for a new era of baseball in which the starters are pulled early in favor of a deep bullpen full of arms that present favorable match ups.
Everything went right at the right time for the Brewers, and they have every reason to believe they’ve got a shot at going all the way. They’ve got home field advantage for the NLDS and NLCS. If there’s a game seven with a trip to the World Series on the line, it will be at Miller Park (and it won’t be against the Cubs). It’s a beautiful thing to think about.
So how am I felling? Ecstatic. I’m having a blast, guys. It would’ve been so tough to see this all end with a one-game Wild Card loss, considering that the Brewers would’ve ended game 162 tied for the most wins in the NL. But that didn’t happen – the Brewers aren’t just surviving, they’re thriving. They’re peaking – and for the first time in as long as I can remember, it’s happening at the perfect time. Whether or not they can extend that magic for another month has yet to be seen, but I can’t tell you how excited I am to watch it all play out.