Six months ago, if this column would have said that the Milwaukee Brewers would be eight games above .500 and hold a five-game lead in the National League Central on Memorial Day, the amount of Talkbacks calling me an idiot would have crashed the site.

Yet, here it is, on the eve of Memorial Day, and that’s exactly where the Brewers sit; 28-20, and sit 5½ games ahead of the second-place Astros.

Still though, fans are starting to throw in the towel. The Brewers will wrap up a stretch of 13 of 16 games on the road against some of the better teams in the NL with a less-than-impressive mark of 3-7 heading into the game today in San Diego. Maybe the Brewers don’t have baseball’s best record anymore, but they’re in first place and barring a total and unfathomable collapse, should be for awhile.

Long story short, it’s time to relax. Take a deep breath, look at the calendar, and step back from the ledge; things aren’t as bad as they seem.

There are, to be sure, some question marks. Offensive production has fallen off significantly, and there’s been some recent trouble in the rotation (notably with Dave Bush). With the way manager Ned Yost has had to use Derrick Turnbow and Francisco Cordero, there is concern of the duo being overworked come September.
 
All of those are legitimate issues, but they’re only going to be answered in time. The solution to the Brewers woes right now is not to call up every batter hitting over .280 and every pitcher with a sub-3.00 ERA from Triple-A Nashville.

In the meantime, here are three important thoughts to bear in mind as the Brewers head into June:

Ryan Braun is not going to carry the team: Ideally, he should be hitting eighth. While he is pegged as a power-hitting third baseman, the last thing he needs right now is the pressure to carry a slumping offense by hitting higher in the lineup. Braun has proved he is a very, very good minor-league player and is expected to be a good big league player. But projections mean very little until there are actual accomplishments to back it up. Braun is still questionable on defense.

The Brewers are the best team in a crummy division: It was fun to watch the Brewers roll to the best start in franchise history and own, for awhile, baseball’s best record. But the fact remains: the National League Central is a bad division this year. The Brewers aren’t nearly as bad as they used to be, but they’re still not at that elite level. They could win the division, but it might not always be pretty.

Let the kids play: Now that Braun is with the team, it’s only a matter of time until the calls start coming for the Brewers to promote Yovani Gallardo (who is 6-1 with a 2.14 ERA in Nashville) to the big club. Bad, bad, bad idea. Yes, he’s dominating the Pacific Coast League, but for that matter, so did Ben Hendrickson. If anybody is moved into the rotation right now, it should be Carlos Villanueva. The right-hander was the only fill-in for Ben Sheets last season that showed any consistency and has also been more than dependable as a long option out of the bullpen. Plus, should something happen and the Brewers do need to summon an arm, they won’t be left high and dry like last year, when Sheets and Tomo Ohka went down with injuries.

The Brewers need to find a way to get back to winning ballgames more frequently, but finishing this road swing near .500 is quite an accomplishment, especially considering the Brewers’ road futility of years past.
 
So take a deep breath and relax. Yost isn’t as dumb as many want to think he is. This team is poised to make a run for the playoffs. While there is still room to improve and work to get done, it’s still a heck of a lot better than being a Cubs fan these days.