Milwaukee Brewers came into the series against Chicago Cubs trailing by 3.5 games. They knew to win the National League Central, it would take winning three out of four or sweeping the hated rivals from the south. That did not happen. Instead, Milwaukee ended up losing three of four including yesterday afternoon when Jose Quintana dominated Milwaukee with a three-hit complete game shutout. Milwaukee is a year away from being something special and that’s okay. The Brewers are a young team who isn’t quite ready to be a contender.

This is all a big learning experience. The three games where they lost in extra innings last week will stick with the team all winter long, and it’s not going to sit well. Milwaukee will use as motivation, and the team itself will have a year of competitive baseball under its belt. Not to mention, there will be big names like Lewis Brinson who are possible Rookie of the Year candidates. My comment to begin the 2017 season was ‘Milwaukee can be frisky this year, and be the real deal in 2018.’ That’s exactly what happened with the Crew being a little closer to the postseason than even what I expected. Being not ready for the big moment is a perfectly fine thing, and we, as fans, should not be upset with the team.

Is there a chance they could catch Colorado this week and make me look foolish? Absolutely. But it looks like a tall task with the Rockies having a two-game lead and playing the rest of their games at Coors Field where they’ve been better as a team. Colorado plays a Miami team who has been giving up runs like the worst pitching staff in baseball then they play Los Angeles who will likely have zero to play for this weekend. Milwaukee will likely need to come close to winning out to sneak into the Wild Card game. I do not see it happening, but stranger things have occurred in baseball.

It sucks that this happened against Chicago, but they’re the kings of the National League Central at this moment. To me, it’s better to have this type of thing happen to the reigning World Series champion versus St. Louis who are in a different, yet similar, situation as Milwaukee. Despite losing three of four, it was one of the best series I’ve seen in quite some time and look forward to the growth of the Brewers-Cubs rivalry.

Charlie.