Attitude is Everything: Brewers take 2-0 Series Lead

All though this will come as a disappointment to no one, I hate the compliment sandwich segment.  Since we will never be doing it again, it is officially a “One and Done”.  On this glorious Monday morning after the greatest Wisconsin sports weekend in History, I feel like talking about attitude.  No gimmicks or silly games today, I want to talk about what has given the Brewers the early edge over the D’Backs.  As simple and cliche as it may sound, I firmly believe it comes down to attitude.

Webster defines attitude as the following:

"A mental position with regard to a fact or state"

As I watched Sunday’s game 2 from my couch in Seattle, it was very clear that the Brewers clubhouse had the right attitude working.  For the second straight day, Ryan Braun set the tone for the game in the first inning.  On Saturday he did it by throwing out a runner at the plate, then on Sunday a two-run bomb gave the team a quick 2-0 lead.  In both games, the team was flying high after the first inning and never came back down to earth.

In my opinion, Robin Yount really got the attitude working yesterday.  After throwing the first pitch out, Yount threw up a “beast mode”.  It is amazing that it has been almost 20 years since he has played here, but he still finds a way to make a difference in a playoff game.  Slowly, but surely, the “beast mode” is making it’s way into the national spotlight.  This silly, non-sensical, gesture gives this team a little extra swagger that motivates the guys to out hit each other.  We saw it yesterday in the 6th inning.  How on earth does a suicide squeeze play turn into a 5 run rally?  Attitude.

There was an amazing shot of Lucroy standing on 2nd base after the squeeze.  He turns to the Brewers dugout and gives almost an agry “beast mode”.  After that, the wheels fell of the bus for the D’Backs.  A walk, single, single, and single later, the game had gone from a 4-4 tie, to a 9-4 lead.  The team had a winning attitude all weekend.  There was not a point in either of the first two games of this series, were I felt like the team was pressing.  Maybe individual players were (Nyjer Morgan), but as a cohesive unit, the Brewers were locked in on their mission.  There is an old sports cliche that I would like to throw out, “Attitude is everything”.

Now the big question is, can the Crew carry this attitude into Arizona.  I have no doubt that Chase Field will be equally as loud and juiced up as Miller Park was this weekend.  So, if the Brewers can rise to the challenge and the D’Backs continue to rely solely on the long ball for offense, this series could be over on Tuesday night.  The D’Backs seemed to have no attitude at all this weekend, neither good nor bad.  Kirk Gibson’s team seemed almost lifeless, which is something I was not expecting.  All 5 of the runs scored by the D’Backs this weekend, came via the home-run.  If they want to get back into this series, they are going to need to start stringing together some hits.  It will be interesting to see if their attitude changes in their home park.

In case you like history, this is the first time in the history of the franchise that the Brewers have held a 2-0 lead in any playoff series.  So that is kind of cool.

I did a lot of reading last night into this morning.  Here are two of my favorite articles.  This one is from Jeff Passan over at Yahoo sports, he is putting all of the other playoff teams on notice about the Brewers.  The gang over at Miller Park Drunk is trying to keep their excitement at a reasonable level. 

It is really fun to be a Brewers fan right now, the sky is the limit.  Currently the Brewers are the only team to hold a 2-0 lead in their series, not the Phillies or the Yankees.  Ryan Braun is only the tenth player in history to have back to back 3 hit games in the post season.  In yesterday’s game, 6 consecutive Brewers reached base before Arizona could record an out…also a record.

Tonight, let’s all rest and mentally prepare ourselves for what could take place tomorrow night.  For those of you in the midwest (probably almost all of you), the game will be starting at 8:30 pm.  So, there could be some late night fun going on in the streets of Brew city.

Go Brewers!!!