Brewers in first place…at least until tomorrow, thanks to sweeping the Cards

Would the real Milwaukee Brewers please stand up?  Pardon my Slim Shady reference, but it seems somewhat appropriate.  This team played out of their minds this weekend and now they control their own destiny, if they win out the rest of the season the Milwaukee Brewers will be the 2011 NL Central Champs.  Now, I know that sounds like nonsense.  Really, I do.  So, let’s just enjoy it for the next 24 hours because who knows when it may happen again.  This is the first time we have been alone in 1st place since July 1st of 2009.  By the 4th they had relinquished sole possession, which leads us to today.

Please enjoy the following:

Milwaukee Brewers     38-28         .576         —

St. Louis Cardinals      38-29         .567         .5

Cincinnati Reds            34-33         .507         4.5

Pittsburgh Pirates        31-33          .484        6.0

Chicago Cubs                25-39          .391         12.0

Houston Astros            24-42          .364         14.0

Man that looks good.  In fact, the team looks really good.  Let’s review:

Wednesday – Brewers win on Nyjer Morgan walk-off single in the bottom of the 9th.  The Brewers trailed in this game 6-2 going into the bottom of the 8th.  An amazing come from behind win.  W 7-6

Thursday – The Brewers poop the bed.  Through 7 innings the offensive line read as follow: 1 run, 2 hits, 3 errors.  Meanwhile, Yovani Gallardo was destroyed by a lineup that consists mostly of replacement players.  I was there to witness the carnage first-hand.  It was difficult to look at this team on that particular night and consider them a possible division leader.  L 1-4

Friday – The Crew demolishes the Cardinals.  Chris Narveson throws 8 innings of shut-out baseball.  Chris Narveson.  Craig Counsell went 3 for 3 with a triple, double, and single.  The team appeared to be in an offensive groove all night.  W 8-0

Saturday – The Boys hang tough and Greinke gets his 6th win as a Brewer.  Prince Fielder(18) and Rickie Weeks (12) each homered.  This game proved that Greinke is going to be everything we hoped to get, he struck out 9 batters and did not walk any Cards.  W 5-3

Sunday – This game was unique because it was a terrific comeback, and every Brewers run was scored in one inning.  In the bottom of the 6th inning, Shaun Marcum had given up 3 runs with no offensive support.  Prince Fielder launched a 2-run homer to right field (19), which ended up being the game winner.  W 4-3

This weekend was a whirlwind.  If they can play like that come September and October, no one will be able to beat them in a 7 game series.  Prince Fielder is the hottest hitter in baseball.  Our large friend is 2nd in all of baseball with 58 RBI’s, and 3rd in the MLB in long-balls with 19.  The Brewers “big three”, have 8 (Gallardo), 7 (Marcum), and 6 (Greinke) wins as of Sunday night.  Everything is starting to fall into place.

Now comes another road trip.  This upcoming trip will tell us if this team is ready to make a long term run, or if they are just on the toasty end of a hot streak.  We start tomorrow with a 4 game series at the unfriendly vines of Wrigley Field, then roll straight into a three game weekend series with the smoking hot Boston Red Sox.  Now, even though the Cubs are worse than that MTV series ‘Skins’, we never play particularly well at Wrigley.  If the Brewers can take 3 of 4 in this series, it would be a major coup.  As for the Red Sox series…your guess is as good as mine.  It could be a possible World Series preview, or it could be a Custer’s Last Stand type massacre.  Either way, when this road trip is over we will know more about this team than we do right now.  They seem to be turning into the team all of the “professional sports analysts” thought they could be.  I doubt there is a team in baseball that wants to face our boys right now.

There is a lot of inter-league play coming up in the next few weeks, so it will be exciting to see how this team utilizes the DH position.  Here are our next few series matchups: Red Sox, Rays, Twins, Yankess, Twins again, Yankees again, and then the fricking Twins…again.  You can bet that we will be having some conversations with our pal Eric Pleiss over at Puckett’s Pond about why we are playing the Twins so many times.  I hope we beat the living piss out of the Yankees.  Those guys piss me off worse than the Miami Heat (who just lost the NBA Finals, ah thank you Dirk Nowitzki).  Will be a strange stretch to say the least.  We will look into this further over the course of the week.

Have a terrific Monday everyone.  Just a few things you should check out; I uncovered some facts about Rays outfielder Sam Fuld for my friend Shawn Anderson over at the Hall of Very Good, also you should check out my thoughts from my trip to Miller Park this past Thrusday, lastly you need to watch the following two video’s because they might change you life. Video 1 and Video 2.

Let’s keep hope alive!!!  Go Brewers!!!