As kids head back to the classrooms this week, I hearken back to my school days, as well.

I was never good at math. For years I struggled with the concepts of always trying to find out what "X" was equal to, and once I figured that out the teacher then wanted to know what "Y" was equal to. So I struggled, never believing that I would ever have to use any of this knowledge. I was always more of a student of history, and have always tried to use that as my guide when my mathematics skills failed me.

I kind of have that same feeling today as I walk my mind through the Brewers playoff scenarios. How is it possible that they are virtually assured of playing October baseball with four weeks left to go in the season?

Right now, the top of the National League Central looks like this:

Milwaukee 84-57

St. Louis 74-66 -9 ½

So this means that the Brewers, in a 162 game schedule, have 21 games left, while the Cardinals have 22.

Using the doomsday scenario that so many Brewers fans seem to be using right now, mathematically, if the Cardinals won all 22 of their remaining games, they would finish the season with a 96-66 record. The Brewers then would have to go 13-8 the rest of the way to still win the division outright.

Of course, the chance of St. Louis winning all 22 of their games is next to impossible, but this is what the overly cautious are bracing themselves for.

Why all the naysayers? Looking back on our history lesson for the day, it appears that it is more that of perception than reality.

Are we as a collective baseball community wringing our hands because we have seen this Brewers team fold up like a cheap suit before? That seems to be the No. 1 argument that social networking site users are saying.

The flaw with that argument is that it simply isn't true.

Let's look at the example of 2008, the year the Brewers nearly blew their 4 ½ game wild card lead with less than one month to play. While it is true that the Brewers lost 15 of 19 September games at one point three years ago, this is hardly the same team.

The only players that have the same roles as they did in 2008 are Prince Fielder, Ryan Braun, and Corey Hart. Rickie Weeks had been benched from time to time near the end of the 2008 season, and this year has been on the disabled list since July 28, so I'll take him out of the equation. The entire pitching staff has been overturned by Doug Melvin. This is in no way the same team that nearly collapsed at the end of the 2008 season – plus, they pulled it together and won the Wild Card on the season's final day, thus, no collapse. They may have made it interesting, but you can't collapse if you achieve your goal.

Let us rewind one year prior to that. Fans may remember 2007 when the Brewers led the division by 8 ½ games on June 23, only to see the hated Chicago Cubs win the Central at season's end. You might remember it as a late-season collapse, but the facts tell a different story.

In 2007, the Brewers swoon wasn't in September, but rather in July. That 8 ½ game lead on June 23 was gone by August 1. Furthermore, the Brewers never led the NL-Central by more than 1 ½ games the rest of the season, nor trailed by more than 3 ½. In September, when pennants are won and lost, Milwaukee was a very respectable 16-12.

My point is that you can't collapse if you don't have a significant lead. In 2007, Ryan Braun's rookie season, the Brewers were an incredibly young team that didn't know how to win yet. The pieces were beginning to fall into place, but they had not yet matured yet into being considered a force to be reckoned with.

Prior to 2007 or as Brewers fans know it, BB (Before Braunie), this simply was not a team that was good enough to compete, thus making it impossible to collapse. In the early Miller Park era, the Brewers have started players such as Brady Clark, Tyler Houston, Alex Sanchez, Jeffrey Hammonds, and Wes Helms on an everyday basis. How anyone had any expectations beyond the basement for players like that escapes logic.

I understand some Brewers fans trepidation in making plans for October. This is not a franchise that has a long, storied history of winning. However, the math does not add up to a September collapse. Using history as our guide, the Brewers have not been this good in at least a generation, if not longer. They have never had a lead of this magnitude, much less blown one.

In this case, history and math both say the same thing. Make your plans for October.