Milwaukee Brewers knew their 10-game road trip would be tough. They faced Chicago, Philadelphia and Atlanta, three of the top teams in the National League. Chicago made the playoffs last year and currently leads the NL Central, Philadelphia leads the NL East and Atlanta was a playoff team last season. If the Brewers went 5-5 on this road trip, it was a successful one. They’re one win away from guaranteeing that after a dominating three games in Philadelphia where Milwaukee took the series, 3-1 including an exclamation point on Thursday with an 11-3 victory.

Player of the Game: Christian Yelich – This guy is starting to pick it up on the road. As mentioned by Tim Allen, host of the Brewers postgame show, Yelich seemed on the ball the last couple of games, and he finally connected on a big fly. Then he added another one later in the game to give him 18 on the season. There is a realistic chance that Yeli could be around 20-22 home runs by the start of June. That’s absolutely incredible. He feasted on two bad pitches on Thursday afternoon.

Honorable Mention: Ryan Braun – I think if you asked Ryan Braun, he would request to play all of his road games at Philadelphia or Chicago. He had another great day at the ballpark. Braun went 3-for-4 with three runs scored and one RBI. He continues to own the Phillies, and it is great. They boo him, and he comes back with solid performance after solid performance. Braun is hitting .455 for the month of May with four homers and already better his hit total for the month of April. He’s playing like an All-Star.

The Thing I liked: Brewers kept coming at the Phillies pitching – Even though the Brewers have won four of their last six games, it feels like those games have been a struggle. Like you have to pull the teeth in order to get what you want from the team. That did not happen on Thursday. Brewers received timely hitting, and the bats were on complete fire with four home runs.

The Thing I didn’t like: Arcia struggling a bit at short – Orlando Arica had a bad play that allowed two unearned runs to score against Zach Davies. Arcia has eight errors on the season already. I don’t think it’s been obvious that he booted the ball so much early on, but that’s definitely a worry for the Brewers.

The Highlight of the day: Yelich’s second homer of the afternoon. The sound off his bat is fucking great.

And then there were 18. #ThisIsMyCrew pic.twitter.com/0krSHaGSML

— Milwaukee Brewers (@Brewers) May 16, 2019

Next up: Brewers head to Atlanta for a three-game set with the Braves. Atlanta has been up and down in their last 10, but they just won two of three against St. Louis. Jhoulys Chacin goes for the Brewers. After a rough start to the year, he figured it out in his last three starts giving up no more than two runs and pitching six in two of the last three. He pitched well in his start vs. Atlanta last year. Braves sent Max Fried to the mound. A dynamic lefty who has struggled a bit in three of his last four starts.

Charlie.