ST. LOUIS -- The Brewers clinched the National League Central on Sunday for the third straight season and the fourth time in the past five years. They popped champagne and cold beers and soaked the carpeting in the visitors' clubhouse at Busch Stadium after a Cubs loss in Cincinnati erased the sting of the Crew’s 5-1 loss to the Cardinals, scenes that have become routine while Milwaukee has piled up seven postseason appearances and five division titles in the past eight years.
But they are not routine, as Rickie Weeks can tell you. Weeks was the Brewers’ second baseman in 2011 when the team won its division for the first time in 29 years, and only the second time in a full season in franchise history. Three years earlier, he was part of the 2008 team that snapped Milwaukee’s 26-year postseason drought.
A whole generation of Wisconsin fans was watching the Brewers in the playoffs for the first time. And it wasn’t so long ago.
“It was the World Series for us to get that division because we hadn’t done it for so long,” said Weeks, who is back with the team and in his second season as associate manager under Pat Murphy. “The first thing I think about when you pose that question is I think about what Yeli [Brewers unofficial captain Christian Yelich] told the group the other day when we were toasting. What happens is that every year is different, but every time you make the playoffs, and especially every time you win the division, that’s not something that’s just handed to you. Those days, you don’t forget. They should never be just, ‘OK, here we go again.’ They are very special.
“But then you have to move on and win the next thing.”
The Brewers, banged-up as they are, will now try to move on and win the next thing. Sunday’s Cubs loss not only helped Milwaukee clinch the division, but also nab one of the NL’s top two seeds, meaning the Brewers earned a bye to a best-of-five NL Division Series against a foe to be determined. Game 1 at American Family Field will be Saturday, Oct. 4.
Before all that, it was time to celebrate what they have already won, in a season they were not expected to win much of anything. Murphy doesn’t know PECOTA from Petco Park, but he knew that the venerable projection system pegged the Brewers for precisely 80.2 victories going into this season. And that was before they started 0-4 and were (reluctantly) the talk of baseball after serving up 15 home runs to the Yankees and their torpedo bats in the opening series.
The Brewers were 25-28 on May 24 before taking off, with winning streaks of eight, 11 and a franchise-record 14 games over a sensational stretch of 53 victories over their next 69 games to vault to the best record in baseball. Going into Sunday’s games with a magic number of one to clinch the division, the Brewers had baseball’s best record, best run differential, best baserunning (according to Statcast), third-best offense by runs per game and fourth-best defense by fielding run value.
They are a team, in that they are better than the sum of the mostly young, mostly undervalued parts. Their highest-ranked position player by wins above replacement (per FanGraphs), Brice Turang, ranks 29th among qualifying hitters. Their ace, Freddy Peralta, ranks 15th in fWAR among qualifying pitchers.
And they are division champions once again.
“It’s not routine,” catcher William Contreras said. “It’s a little different this year because we started with a bad record. Nobody thought we were going to have the best record in baseball. That’s great for us and for the team. The young guys, they had to see how we get there. We have to play hard every day.”
“This,” said Yelich, whose arrival in 2018 coincided with the start of the Brewers’ run, “is the ‘why.’ This is why everything is harped on throughout the year. This is why we pay attention to detail. Why there’s tough love throughout the season, why you keep grinding and trying to get better. These moments, and the fact that you can celebrate with your teammates and show them this is why we do all that work. Hopefully this is the first step of many more.”
It wasn’t lost on Yelich that the Brewers celebrated on Sunday where this run began. On Sept. 26, 2018, the Brewers beat the Cardinals at Busch Stadium to clinch Milwaukee’s first postseason berth in seven years, the decisive moment coming when a then-unknown pinch-runner named Adolis García slipped around third base in the eighth inning trying to score the tying run.
Since then, the Brewers have earned their way into the postseason in all but one year. The three players left from that ‘18 team -- Yelich, Peralta and Brandon Woodruff -- joined Murphy and Brewers principal owner Mark Attanasio for a photo on Sunday to mark that history.
“I think they’ve built something special here,” said Brewers right fielder Sal Frelick. “That’s all a credit to the front office and Murph getting the right guys in here putting this uniform on. It’s the culture. We show up every year in Spring Training with the goal of winning the division. I’m fortunate that I’ve been able to do it every year.
“‘Yeli’ reminds us that guys go their whole careers without ever getting to spray champagne. This is my third year, and I’ve done it three times.”
Now it’s on to the next challenges. The Brewers, who begin a three-game series Monday night against a potential NLDS foe in San Diego, have a week to secure the No. 1 overall seed over the Phillies and the Blue Jays, which would ensure home-field advantage as far as they go. They will also spend the remainder of the regular season plus five off-days before Game 1 of the NLDS sorting through a pitching staff with four key arms on the IL in Woodruff, Jose Quintana, Trevor Megill and DL Hall.
And they will lay plans to reverse recent postseason heartache. Starting with Game 7 of the 2018 NLCS, when the Brewers fell to the Dodgers and missed a chance to go to the World Series for the first time since 1982, Milwaukee is 2-11 in postseason games and 0-6 in postseason series.
“We have to take the next step,” said Attanasio, who made a deal to buy the team in late 2004 when it was on a streak of 12 straight losing seasons. “We keep knocking on the door here, and I think getting a bye is really helpful because we can get just a little healthier and maybe get the Wild Card [Series] bad juju off our back.”
That’s a couple of weeks away. Sunday was about savoring their success this season, and in recent regular seasons.
“I heard somebody say, ‘We’ve got the regular season figured out. Now we’ve got to figure out the playoffs,’” said Murphy, repeating a familiar complaint about coverage of his team. “That's one of the most absurd comments I've ever heard because nobody's got the regular season figured out. Have we done well in the regular season? Yes. Have we done more with a lot less? Yes. How does that translate to the playoffs?”
It doesn’t, he argues.
“[Critics say], 'Well you’ve got to do it in the playoffs.' Well, it's different in baseball because baseball isn't measured by one game, but often times in the playoffs, it comes down to one game,” Murphy said. “Your body of work is judged by what you've done in the regular season. Not advancing in the playoffs the last few years does not diminish what those teams were, and if you don't understand that, then you should follow another sport because that's how it is.
“When a team gets hot at the end and gets cruising and moves on -- and we've faced some of those teams in the playoffs because of the format -- there's nothing you can do sometimes. Nobody's that much better or that dominant in this game. That's just the way this game is. So regular season is how you judge the body of work, and the postseason is fun but takes a lot of things to break and go your way. Sometimes having great talent helps that.
“I don't worry about this team. Whatever anybody says about this team, I get to live it every day and see how special they are.”