Category Archives: Sports

The Brewers are on a roll. Tonight’s win guarantees a series win against the Cardinals. Even if they lose tomorrow, they can go home happy. For a team that’s played poorly on the road all year, 5 wins on a 6-game road is pretty good. And if they win tomorrow, they return home a perfect 6-0.

The all-important magic number? Down to 41.

An extra-inning Brewers win in St. Louis puts them 4 games ahead in the NL Central.

Their magic number is now 43.

The Brewers completed a sweep of the Astros yesterday. The Cardinals are keeping pace, though. They swept the Marlins by winning yesterday’s game 8-4.

That brings Milwaukee’s magic number to 45.

Both teams have today off, then play each other in a three-game series in St. Louis.

The Brewers win again. Meanwhile, the second-place Cardinals beat the Florida Marlins, 2-1. Milwaukee’s record moves to 64-50; St. Louis is now 61-53.

With 61 wins so far and 48 games to go, St. Louis has a maximum possible win total of 109. If the Cardinals win out the rest of the season, that means the Brewers would need 110 wins to guarantee winning the division. With their 64 wins, that would take 46 more wins to assure Milwaukee a playoff spot. That’s their magic number.

Of course, even the best team isn’t going to win 48 games in a row. Every Cardinal loss means one less victory the Brewers need to clinch.

That means any combination of Brewer victories and and Cardinal losses adding up to 46 will guarantee Milwaukee an NL Central division championship.

This also means that this blog’s previous magic number calculations were too high by 10; mea culpa.

Tonight’s victory means the Brewers’ magic number is now down to 57.

The Cardinals’ 3-2 win over the Florida Marlins means that getting it down to 56 will have to wait until at least tomorrow.

Thanks to three home runs from previously slumping 3B Casey McGehee, the Brewers’ magic number to clinch their division is down to 58.

Brewers beat writer Adam McCalvy learned of an amusing subplot behind today’s game. Seinfeld fans will remember the episode where Yankees all-star Paul O-Neill promised to hit two home runs for a sick child.

Well, McGehee met a young fan before today’s game:

“This morning, I got to meet a little kid. His name’s Clayton,” McGehee said. “Clayton was being pretty shy and I kept asking him, ‘Do you have any questions for me?’ He wouldn’t ask me anything. Finally, jokingly, his dad asks me, ‘Why don’t you hit a home run for him?’”

McGehee scoffed. He’d hit five home runs all season, none since July 6 and one in his last 63 games.

“It it was that easy, I would have had one by now,” McGehee answered. “How about we just go for I don’t screw anything up for the kid today? That was good enough for him.”

Three home runs later, I think young Clayton will be a welcome presence in the Brewers’ clubhouse from now on.

The first-place Milwaukee Brewers (61-49) defeated the second-place St. Louis Cardinals (57-52) tonight, 6-2. By my calculations, that puts the Brewers’ magic number to clinch the NL Central division at 60.

Any combination of Brewer wins and Cardinal losses adding up to that number will guarantee the Brewers their first postseason appearance since 2008, and their second since 1982.

Good luck!