Slowly but surely, the Milwaukee Brewers have forced their way back into relevance in the NL Central race. Milwaukee has won its last four games and eight of its last 11 to sit one game over .500 at 29-28 on the year entering play on Thursday. This may still have them 3.5 games back of the 32-24 St. Louis Cardinals for second place and 6.5 games back of the first-place Chicago Cubs, but things could be working in their favor soon.
Yes, the lineup needs to find ways to generate more runs, but the pitching staff is starting to figure it out. More importantly, the Brewers should be getting back Jose Quintana soon, as well as former All-Star Brandon Woodruff from injury. If Milwaukee plans to continue to cut the deficit in the NL Central race, it must be the lethal combination of great pitching and timely hitting. Do they have it in them?
That remains to be seen for Pat Murphy's club, but we have seen the Brew Crew win more with less before in recent years. The NL Central has been a bit of a conundrum of late with St. Louis being inconsistent and the Cubs being so up and down. The Pittsburgh Pirates still remain mostly down, while the Cincinnati Reds feel like a team that is one fortnight away from really making a run here.
All that aside, my favorite thing about the Brewers potentially getting back in this is their composure.
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Why now is the time to get on the Milwaukee Brewers bandwagon
Even though teams like the Cardinals and Cubs have richer baseball tradition, Milwaukee has really made some headway in that regard in the last 15 years or so. Adding players like Christian Yelich to their roster have really helped Milwaukee establish an identity of playing a full nine innings and never saying die. Other teams will always be more star-studded than them, but the Brewers will find a way.
What I think has happened this year for the Brewers is they have gotten away from who they are a bit. It may be purely coincidental, but the way the Cardinals and Cubs have played of late has come as a bit of a surprise to me. We always knew they had it in them, but to see them finally put it all together has been refreshing to see, at least from an unbiased and national perspective. Milwaukee has time.
We may be at the stage of the season where we could finally start crossing off teams from serious contention. It has been over since April for the Colorado Rockies of the world, but a slow start could only slow down a quality ball club like Milwaukee for so long. I am not sure if they catch the Cardinals or Cubs, but recent history suggests that they will take advantage of their rival teams' big mistakes.
It is all about Murphy getting his team to believe in themselves again, and they are starting to do that.