Milwaukee Brewers Opening Day: The Beginning Of A Wonderful Journey

It’s Opening Day and the Milwaukee Brewers are about to begin another journey that will take us through an emotional rollercoaster.

Today’s the day! We’ve been waiting 159 days for this day to come, since the 2018 season unceremoniously ended on us. That ending left our hearts aching for our beloved Milwaukee Brewers, but optimism was still high, as things were looking up heading into the 2019 season.

Last year’s journey ended with the Brewers being at the forefront of an unconventional pitching strategy that was created because of the lack of trusted starting pitchers that were available to them. People thought the Brewers had gone crazy, but the strategy worked for the most part, and this team came so close to the World Series.

Being that close and coming up short has left a bitter taste in our mouths. We’ve gotten a taste of success and we want some more. We won’t be satisfied with just being a good story, we want to win the whole thing and complete the season long journey to win the final game of the season.

This team accomplished so much last year. For years, the Cubs treated the Brewers and their fans as the little brother, not being able to play with the big boys and win, not being good enough to support a successful team. We finally proved them wrong and shut them up for a little bit last year, didn’t we?

The Brewers proved that they can win this division and they can beat the team that everyone thought was immortal and couldn’t be touched. The Brewers did that, they won the division and ended up on top. Payroll size didn’t matter, hype and predictions from national media pundits didn’t matter. It came down to one game, Game 163, on the Cubs own turf, where the Brewers should’ve been at a disadvantage, but they weren’t deterred and brought about a new era in the NL Central.

This team went toe-to-toe with the Los Angeles Dodgers, a historic franchise in a huge market with double the payroll of the small market Brewers. And we played with them. It was an evenly matched series, and it could’ve gone either way.

And here we are heading into 2019, and we still don’t get any respect. The rotation got better, the catching situation got better, the offense got better, and despite all that, pundits and “experts” alike are all predicting the Brewers to finish third in the division and regress. Last year proved something to be true and this year will prove the same thing again about those national media pundits:

They don’t know sh*t.

They don’t know this team, and they don’t care enough to take a deeper dive into this team and realize that they’re actually better than the Cubs and the Cardinals. Those other organizations have name value with their players, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to perform that much better. Jesus Aguilar doesn’t strike the fear in pundits the same way Paul Goldschmidt does, but does that mean he can’t provide the same kind of production? Travis Shaw‘s name doesn’t carry as much weight as Kris Bryant, but does that mean he can’t outperform Bryant?

We don’t care.

We’ll prove them all wrong once again. Maybe after this time they’ll realize this Milwaukee Brewers team is for real and it’s here to stay. It’s a new season, and the beginning of a new 162-, or possibly 163-game journey. With any luck, we’ll get much more than just those 162 scheduled games.

The 2018 season is in the past, and the 2019 season is right in front of us. The memories last year were great and we’ll treasure them forever. But it’s time to make new memories, and ones that hopefully include a parade down the streets of Milwaukee.

This is our year. This is our team. This is our Crew. Let’s go on this wonderful journey of ups, downs, and ups again through the next seven months together. I have a feeling it’s going to be something special.

The Milwaukee Brewers are set to take on the St. Louis Cardinals to begin their defense of the NL Central title.