Live look at the Brewers postseason chances entering the final week and a half of the season:
Side note: How is there not one single gif of Jack Bauer from 24 saying, ‘we’re running out of time.’ How. I spent a stupid amount of time trying to find one, then I even googled, ‘how to make a gif,’ to see if I could make my own. As it turns out, making a gif is pretty difficult when you have no knowledge of how to do anything on a computer other than copy and paste. The more you know.
Anyway, at this point the Brewer bandwagon is getting pretty thin. The wind got taken out of a LOT of sails when they started collapsing following the Josh Hader trade at the deadline. The team got in a funk and turned a 4 game division lead into an 8 game division deficit in the time it takes to microwave a Hot Pocket. Since then they’ve kind of gotten on track, but inconsistent offense has plagued them as they’ve tried to make up ground in the Wild Card race.
Well folks, this is it. After a day off yesterday, they have 9 games remaining on the schedule, and all of them are at home. They currently sit 1.5 games behind the Phillies for that final playoff spot, but they are two back in the loss column which is really 3 back in the loss column because they don’t have a tiebreaker and there will be no game #163.
The Phillies have 10 games remaining on their schedule, all of them on the road, but against a pretty soft schedule. First of three tonight against the Cubs at Wrigley, then four against the last place Nationals before wrapping the year with three in Houston. That Astros series is an interesting one because the Astros are the best team in the American League, but they’ve long since wrapped up home field so you wonder how much they’ll care/how many of their regulars they will even play. With the new playoff format they are staring down the barrel of a week off before they play a playoff game, so there’s a chance they actually take that series semi-seriously in order to stay sharp. We shall see.
So the question is, what record on this 9-game homestand gets the Brewers into the playoffs? Ideally I’d like to see them win 11-ish games in the final 9, but I recognize that that probably isn’t in the realm of possibility. So the options as I see them are as follows:
- 9-0. 9-0 definitely gets you in. The longest winning streak the Brewers have put together this season? 5 games. And that was back in April. Not coincidentally that fact should show you how up and down they’ve been this season since the 32-18 start.
- 8-1. I’m 90% sure 8-1 gets you in.
- 7-2. In my mind this is the last possible option to still get a spot. If the Brewers go 7-2, the Phillies have to go 5-5 in their last 10. That’s still asking a lot given their strength of schedule, but it’s in the realm of possibility.
To me, that’s it. And 7-2 is still sort of a coin flip. No matter what ends up happening I do have one request for tonight and tomorrow: Please, for the love of God, don’t let St. Louis clinch the Central at Miller Park. Their magic number is 1, so the Brewers need to win both of these games to avoid seeing Albert Pujols/Adam Wainright/Yadier Molina spray champagne in the visitor’s clubhouse for the 456465th time. If the Brewers end up not being able to string together enough wins to get that Wild Card spot it honestly won’t be a shock given how they’ve been playing since June (sub .500 team), but let’s at least avoid our hated rival celebrating on our home field. Please and thank you.
PS: Had a texter ask if Miller Park will give Albert Pujols a standing ovation tonight during his last trip to Milwaukee in his career. Absolutely they will and they should. And I say that while in the same breath acknowledging that Albert Pujols has caused me more sports pain in my life than maybe anybody else in baseball, football or basketball. He’s always been a thorn in our side, but his role in punting our 2011 season hurts in a different kind of way. As much fun as 2018 was, that 2011 team was LOADED. It’s the most talented Brewer roster in my lifetime. You had Prince and Braun in their prime, they actually had pitching with prime-Gallardo, Greinke and Marcum (before he puked on himself in the playoffs), John Axford was so good as a closer he got Cy Young votes. They had everything cooking, and then that Cardinal team came out of nowhere and drank our milkshake. They drank it up. Led by Pujols and David *BLEEPING* Freese. After that, Prince left in free agency, Greinke was traded, and the team sorted of floated aimlessly for a while. So yeah, it’s a bitter pill to swallow to give him a standing ovation, but there’s no doubt he’s one of the all time greats. We may never see another 700 home run career in our lifetime.
Double PS: ^Related: Thank God he got #700 before tonight.
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