Baseball does things differently than other sports. The National Football League & the National Basketball Association both make a huge deal about releasing their schedule to the public. Baseball releases the schedule in the middle of summer without really any fanfare. Milwaukee Brewers announced their 2019 schedule. While we do not know how good some of these teams will be after offseason moves, it’s still interesting to see what’s ahead for next year’s Brewers squad. Their interleague matchups will be with the very tough American League West posing one of the many challenges for the Brewers.

1. Tough sledding from Game 1 – Boy, it’s a rough way to start the season for the Crew. They play the St. Louis Cardinals three times in the month of April including a four-game set to open the season. Crew also plays the Los Angeles Dodgers twice, the Chicago Cubs once and the Los Angeles Angels. It’s not easy. Brewers might have to hope for a .500 start to the season with the tough schedule of the gate.

2. September isn’t for the weak – Unlike this season where the Brewers have copious off days, they have a tough push to finish the season. Milwaukee plays 18 straight games from September 5th to September 22nd. That is a tall order for Milwaukee. Who knows the strength of the competition for those games. St. Louis and Chicago are there which will obviously be big ones, but an upstart San Diego team could be an issue for a four-game set plus who knows about Pittsburgh. It’s unlikely that this will be easy for Milwaukee.

3. Worst road trip comes in July-August – Milwaukee does not have a ton of ‘scary’ road trips. They’re out West three times this year with an early trip to Los Angeles area then San Diego-San Francisco later in the year. But if you want to have one gripe with a road trip, it’s a random journey to Oakland at the end of July where Milwaukee has to go to Chicago for a weekend series (PS: Great job, MLB, on giving us a ton of Brewers-Cubs weekend games) then to Pittsburgh without an off day. That will be the most challenging road trip for the Crew.

Some years you look at 2019 and hope for a better season than this one. Right now, I’m hoping I do not think about the 2019 schedule until February 2019 after the Brewers wrapped up a postseason run in 2018.

Charlie.