Brewers keep closing ground on Phillies
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Brewers keep closing ground on Phillies
Bob Brookover, Inquirer Baseball Columnist
Earthquakes, and hurricanes, and the Milwaukee Brewers, oh my.
Two of those three things have come and gone and now the Brew Crew is closing in on Philadelphia, too.
Milwaukee did not seem like much of a threat to the Phillies' bid to finish with the best record in the National League 2 1/2 weeks ago. After the Phillies finished a 9-1 West Coast trip with a sweep of the Los Angeles Dodgers, they were 10 games better than the Brewers.
Since then, the Phillies have been under a dark cloud -- actually a lot of dark clouds -- as they have endured a series of rain delays and postponements. The Phils have gone 7-6 since the West Coast trip and they have added two doubleheaders to their September schedule, leaving them with 33 games in 31 days and zero days off between now and the postseason.
Meanwhile, in Milwaukee, the Brewers used a 14-4 surge to trim that 10-game deficit to five.
The Phillies, of course, are in no jeopardy of missing the playoffs and still have a six-game lead over the Atlanta Braves in the N.L. East. The Braves have gone 15-5 since the Phillies' 9-1 road trip and closed to within six games of first place.
Since the Phillies and Braves still play each other six times, Atlanta controls its own fate, but it seems unlikely that they would sweep all six games.
The Brewers, on the other hand, have a legitimate chance of catching the Phillies for the best record in the league for one simple reason: the schedule.
Milwaukee only has 27 games remaining as compared to 33 for the Phillies. The Brewers play 15 times at home, where they are a major-league best 50-16 this season. They also only have four series -- two against St. Louis and one each against the Phillies and Cincinnati -- and 13 games remaining against teams that currently have winning records.
The Phillies have 33 games left, including 20 on the road. Five of their final 10 series -- one each against the Reds, Brewers and Cardinals and two against the Braves -- and 18 of their final 33 games are against teams with winning records.
If finishing with the best record in the league is important to the Phillies -- and it should be -- then nothing is going to be easy about September.
You'll hear more about the Brewers as the Phillies prepare to play them next week at Miller Park. All you need to right now is that they'd be a dangerous playoff opponent without home-field advantage in the postseason and extremely dangerous with it.
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Brew Crew is playing lights out rightnow and could be this years Giants.....but, are they peaking too soon? Still my pick to click, if the veteran Phillie staff implodes.— Mark1npt- Philillies are still five games in front of Milwaukee...more importantly the Brewers have lost 8 more games than the Phillies, and have only 27 games left..plus the Brewers will not be able to be as hot as they have been.— frank105
- If the Brewers currently have 5 wins less than the Phillies, how does the fact that they also have 6 less games remaining help them? The Phillies control their destiny if they continue playing at a .550 to .600 clip.— frankenslade
- This is baseball. Teams got hot. The phillies were hot after the pence trade, then the braves got hot, and now the brewers get hot. It happens. With that said, the brewers do not have the staff and bullpen that SF had last year... no one really has that combo in all of baseball (the braves are close and of course, the phillies starting staff is outstanding). The brewers are talented and currently hot but have a month where they could easily blow a fuse, especially against a dominating pitching staff such as the phils.— jl4045801
- MGelb: I am more worried about the guys/gals in the marketing department at the Inky that write the inane spits just below the masthead on the electronic versions of the sports page - the one above 'doesn't stop for hurricanes' and the others. Who writes these? Do we have a WAR stat on whether if they went away what kind of output we might have from the rest of the newspaper. Obviously got my attention.....OMG— Dadof24
- Phils play 15 against teams with losing record, Brews play 14. Not that different. Philly plays 18 against teams with winning record, Brews play 13. Phils could lose all 5 extra and still be ahead.— P Even
- Its easy to go 14-4 when the teams you're playing are the 3 worst teams in the NL. Even the weakest teams in the East are stronger than the ones in the Central.— bobbyuk
- hopefully no more rain delays or postponements. Those situations really affected the pitching staff.— palmyra21
- Brewers have LOST 8 more games tha Phillies, and have only 27 games left to play.....Phillies are in control, plus will beat the Brews next week.— frank105
- The Brewers will be tough in the post-season, as will the Braves. If the Giants make the playoffs, their top two pitchers kind own us. Having said that, would I trade our team for any of them? No.— eman
Comment removed.- I agree with the commenters who point out that the Phillies' games in hand - 4 on the Braves, 6 on the Brewers - is an extemely important number. I know there are a couple of teams out there who are more than good enough to beat us if they're hot and we're cold (like SF last year, which was about the 4th or 5th best team in the NL as of late July), but this Phillie team just doesn't look likely to get involved in an extended slump. I guess I'm saying that anything can happen, but I'd rather be in our position than anybody else's.— 1980
- If anything the Phillies needed two days of rest, even if they have to play straight for the rest of the season.— Capsulef
- Even if you have one of the greatest pitching staffs ever assembled, it doesn't matter if you have an incompetent manager. The Phillies are 6-6 in their last 12 games, but they would have been 10-2 or 9-3 with a manager who knew how to manage a pitching staff.— Gnip Gnop
- The easiest job in sports is making the correct personnel decisions in yesterday's game.— 1980
