Milwaukee Brewers Manager Ron Roenicke may not want to be discussing playoff details with 27 games and four-plus weeks left in the
regular season, and wisely so. He needs to keep the team focused on the task at hand – winning the division and remaining a team that can compete with the Major League’s best. Roenicke’s understandable and wise reticence notwithstanding, the division is pretty much won and the only real question is the Brewers’ positioning.
That means the rest of can enjoy the speculation. So here are five questions whose answers might predict what a Brewer postseason will look like:
Will Ricky Weeks be healthy?
The team’s success since their star second baseman went down July 28 with a severe ankle sprain is nothing short of stunning and could win Roenicke manager of the year. Still, runs are at a premium in the playoffs when the Brewers will be facing the likes of Roy Halliday, Tim Lincecum and Tim Hudson. So the Brewers will need a healthy Weeks. Besides abundant power and spark of his own, he is a key in protecting slugger Prince Fielder and getting him better pitches to hit, fewer walks or causing a more severe price to pay for walking him.
Third baseman Casey McGehee’s resurgence aside, the Brewers’ number five spot has not been a strength since Weeks went down. With him back, there are multiple options. Weeks could go to the lead off spot and Hart to the five spot, vice versa, or Braun could go to five with Weeks and Hart lead off and number three.
Will the Zack Greinke of the playoffs be the 2009 version that won the AL Cy Young Award or the mediocre pitcher of 2010? He’s been a bit of both in 2011 with little middle ground. His return to dominance would make the Milwaukee rotation formidable indeed.
Will closer John Axford’s occasional flirtation with disaster finally burn him? Axford, despite his incredible run of consecutive saves, is only in his second year as a closer and has no playoff experience. He does get wild and gives up somewhat more base runners than ideal
Plus, he’s not likely to get playoff-like experience down the stretch with the team more than 10 games up.
If the team coasts into the post season, will there be a let down? The help here is they are now closing in on the league-leading Phillies and could shoot for a top seed. A four-game set with the Phils at Miller Park on Sept. 8-11 might settle the issue of whether the Brewers can really catch them.
Additionally, the Brewers can set the goals of a franchise mark in wins (96 achieve that) and being the first in franchise history to win 100 games. A 19-8 finish would get them to 100 and the way this team is playing, that cannot be ruled out.
What are the wild-card factors. Will Roenicke manage like an experienced manager or fall prey to rookie missteps? Will Nyjer Morgan’s Tony Plush antics continue providing energy or start to take on the nature of a juvenile annoyance? And, finally, does this Brewer team really have the chemistry to raise its game to another level al a the 2010 San Francisco Giants?
The good news is all the positives are indeed possible. A 27-5 run will do that for a team. Naysayers beware: it could all be coming together for what has long been a ne’er do well franchise.