Hot September has mystifying Brewers in the hunt

Prince Fielder has kept the Brewers in the race with his stellar 47 home run season. AP

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Here we are, 152 games into the Brewers' stomach-spinning ride of a season and I, for one, have a hard time figuring out what to make of this team. I know I'm not alone, either. A good portion of Milwaukee's baseball-loving populace wavers wildly between blind optimism about the Brew Crew's postseason possibilities and ready-to-leap desperation at their latest predicament. And that's just in the seventh inning of any given game.

The Brewers have looked fine, bordering on good, maybe even very good, and they've also looked for a long time as if finishing above .500 for the season would take a good bit of luck and a little divine intervention. They've been alive and kicking several times. They've been dead as a busted bat, too.

So here they sit with a little more than a week to play, with the National League's Central division title still there for the taking. Or, just as likely, to toss away.

That's the Brewers. That's been the Brewers all season long.

"Lately, things have been going our way," said a cheery Geoff Jenkins, who has been on a mostly downhill ride for 10 long seasons in Milwaukee. "We're playing pretty well. We've been able to manufacture a few runs, which is big for us. We're a game behind the Cubs."

Well, the Brewers were a game behind the Cubs. After Thursday's mostly uninspiring 3-1 loss to the Braves and first-time starter Jeff Bennett (who, before Thursday, hadn't appeared in a game since he pitched for the Brewers in October 2004), they're now 1 ½ back.

But that loss is not all that important anyway because, heck, the Brewers still have 10 more games to play. A lot can happen in 10 games. Seeing as these are the Brewers, and they play in the ho-hum NL Central, a lot will happen in the next 10 games.

"We've got plenty of time," said Milwaukee manager Ned Yost.

This started out as a breakthrough season in Milwaukee, which hasn't fielded a winning team since 1992 and hasn't played in the postseason since '82. A trendy preseason pick in the wide-open Central, the Brewers began the season 25-11 and, after their first market correction of the year, still led the division by a season-best 8 ½ games late in June.

But then they started another slide. They had an awful July, and in early August a couple of players and Yost, feeling a little heat, got into a dugout shouting match. By mid-month, they finally gave up first place to the plodding Cubs. In late August, they dipped below .500. They slogged through July and August at a stunning 14 games under .500 (20-34). And that's when many people wrote them off for good.

Yeah, I was one of them. A couple of weeks ago, I penned out an obit on them. All the hate mail is still pouring into my inbox. It's an ugly, nasty place, that inbox.

Much to their credit, though, the Brewers arose. They've fought their way through these past few weeks, as Jenkins points out. September has been, in many quantifiable ways, their best month of the year. Things are looking up for the Brewers, if you look at it just the right way.

"I feel confident in our team," said pitcher Jeff Suppan, who took the loss Thursday. "I really feel, if we go out and play our game, good things will happen."

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