Maybe, just maybe, we were all lulled into a false sense of faith, belief and wonder in our Milwaukee Brewers.
Putting up the magic number. Talking about going deep in the playoffs. Serious discussions about a World Series. Serious discussions about a World Series title.
Maybe we all got a little ahead of ourselves, caught in a web of excitement that had more fiction than fact, that was based more on weaknesses than on strengths.
This dream of domination that we had may well have been made out of whole cloth.
Take a look at the last six weeks for the Brewers, all of a magical August and two weeks of a less than magical September.
In August the Brewers played 27 games. Eight games were against teams with a better than .500 record. The Brewers were 4-4 in those games. Nineteen games were against teams with less than a .500 record and the Brewers went an amazing 18-1 in those games. We were all wondering if, and when, this team was going to come back to earth.
Since Sept. 1 the Brewers have played 11 games, going into tonight's game against Colorado. They have played eight of those games against teams with a better than .500 record. Their record in those games is 2-6. They have played, and won, three games against sub-.500 teams, the Houston Astros, by far the worst team in all of baseball.
One school of thought, of course, is to throw all these statistics out of the window and get on with the love affair we have with our team. Like telling your wife you will love her forever even if she keeps making that lasagna you hate every week.
The other way to look at it is to say, and this one hurts, that the Brewers are a good baseball team, better than most of the teams in the National League, but they are a long way from being one of the best teams in the league.
One mark of a top team, in any sport, is that it beats the other teams that compete with it for top spots. Or at least they play the good guys even. Over six weeks so far, the Brewers are 6-10 against the teams that play over .500 ball.
I am not a Sabermetrics guy, not because I don't believe in it but because I was always horrible at math. I believe that statistics can ALWAYS tell you a story. But I also believe that statistics are NEVER the whole story.
People talk a lot about how good the Brewers are and that makes me wonder why they have such an average record against good teams. I suppose that someone with a big calculator, an investigative spirit and a lot more skill than I have could somehow quantify it and come up with some statistic.
But using the "feel" method of analysis and I have the feeling that the Brewers have a problem in the middle innings of games. I think they are pretty good early and late, but I've got a suspicion that they have problems in the fourth, fifth and sixth innings. As I said, I really don't have any empirical evidence to support it, but I think that time frame is a difficult one for the Brewers.
The other thing is that I don't think the Brewers are a great defensive team. I think they have defensive weaknesses at first base, second base, shortstop and center field when Carlos Gomez is out of the lineup. When you are fighting for a pennant, defensive weakness can jump up and bite you when the errors really hurt.
If all of this is true, that the Brewers are better than a host of teams that are under .500, the rest of the season augurs well: Milwaukee has games left against Colorado, Cincinnati, Chicago, Florida and Pittsburgh, none of which is over .500.
With a history in Milwaukee stretching back decades, Dave tries to bring a unique perspective to his writing, whether it's sports, politics, theater or any other issue.
He's seen Milwaukee grow, suffer pangs of growth, strive for success and has been involved in many efforts to both shape and re-shape the city. He's a happy man, now that he's quit playing golf, and enjoys music, his children and grandchildren and the myriad of sports in this state. He loves great food and hates bullies and people who think they are smarter than everyone else.
This whole Internet thing continues to baffle him, but he's willing to play the game as long as OnMilwaukee.com keeps lending him a helping hand. He is constantly amazed that just a few dedicated people can provide so much news and information to a hungry public.
Despite some opinions to the contrary, Dave likes most stuff. But he is a skeptic who constantly wonders about the world around him. So many questions, so few answers.
