From the Windup: The Brewers Have Pulled Out All the Stops ... but Why?

From the Windup is FanHouse's daily, extended look at a particular portion of America's pastime.

The Brewers have had a wild few weeks. The standings might say they're tied with the Mets for the wild card, but they don't tell the whole story. It's well documented here and everywhere that the Brewers had a 5 1/2-game lead in the NL wild-card race on Sept. 1st and the whole thing was gone on Sept. 15th, which lead to Ned Yost's firing. Since then, the Brewers have been treading water and even with their near-epic collapse, they're still in the thick of things 10 days after Yost's firing.

So what's the deal in Milwaukee? Why did this team collapse? Can they still make the playoffs? What happens if they do? What happens if they don't? The Brewers don't generally come up in converstations about baseball's most enigmatic teams, but there's hasn't been any team that's more interesting or compelling than Milwaukee in 2008.

The most baffling part about their collapse earlier in the month was that it happened at all. The Brewers really might be the most talented team in the National League. The Cubs certainly give them a run for their money, but it's hard to match CC Sabathia, Ben Sheets, Ryan Braun, Prince Fielder, J.J. Hardy, Mike Cameron, and Corey Hart. The biggest question for this team right now should be if they can overcome Ben Sheets' injury to still go to the World Series. Instead it's whether or not they can pull themselves up off of the pavement and into the playoffs.

And yet, here they are, tied for the wild card with four games left in the season. The collapse that got them here was impressive. Many Brewers fans will tell you they saw this coming months ago, but that's kind of ridiculous. When August closed, the Brewers had won eight of 10 and looked to be easily crusing to their first playoff berth in 25 years. Then, suddenly, it all fell apart. In losing 11 of 14 games and getting Ned Yost fired, everything stopped working at once. Prince Fielder and Ryan Braun's power went away while the pitching staff collapsed. Even after Yost was fired, CC Sabathia absorbed his first two losses as a Brewer and Ben Sheets suffered yet another injury, one that may sideline him for the rest of the year. As epic collapses go, this one seemed to be rival what we saw from the Mets last year.

Their rapid collapse at the beginning of the month had as much to do with bad timing as it did with choking. A few of their main producers hit slumps right when they played a four-game series against the Phillies, who were three games behind them in the wild-card race. Certainly 11 losses in 14 games is never good, but the fact that four were against the Phillies was just unfortunate. After last night, the Brewers have now won three straight and are again tied atop the wild-card standings. Sabathia regained his unhittable form against the Pirates, striking out 11 hitters in seven innings on three days rest. With four games remaining in the season, the Brewers have the Pirates one more time and a Cubs team that will be angling for the playoffs for three more. The Mets have the Cubs once more and then the Marlins, who have already said they're playing their starters. Things are decidedly looking up in Milwaukee again.

This recent run back to the top of the wild-card standings hasn't happened because Dale Sveum is making the Brewers bunt more and rely on the home run less, as their announcers suggested last night. It's happened because the Brewers are good (and they're playing the Pirates). With their sudden collapse, it's easy to forget that fact. On Aug. 31st, the NLCS seemed like a lock to feature the Cubs and Brewers. That's gone out the window since then, but if Ben Sheets comes back this weekend and looks healthy and the Brewers win the wild card, who wants to play a team with Sabathia pitching twice and Sheets once in a best-of-five series? Two years ago the Cardinals proved the merits of just making the playoffs. They limped in after an ugly September in which they were very nearly caught by the Astros in the NL Central, then proceeded to win the World Series.

Of course, the Brewers are no lock for the playoffs. Their rotation is a disaster (Jeff Suppan and Manny Parra are all but unusuable at this point because they've been so bad) and if Gallardo and Sheets can't contribute, it's likely that they'll complete their collapse and miss the playoffs. What hapens then? They'll lose Sabathia and Sheets, sure, but that doesn't mean their streak of missing the playoffs will continue indefinitely. Every other important member of their team will be back, Yovani Gallardo and Manny Parra certainly have the pedigree to try and replace those departed aces, and the team should have some real money to spend in the free agent market with Sheets, Eric Gagne, and maybe Jason Kendall and Mike Cameron (who have options ... UPDATE: Kendall's option for 2009 is a vesting option and he'll be back) coming off of the books. In fact, you could likely make the case pretty easily that the Brewers are in better shape for the future than the Cubs, who rely a little more heavily on older players and unlikely career years.

Maybe that's what makes all of the desperation by the Brewers in the past ten days so surprising. Even when they were collapsing, they were a good team on firm footing for the future that never fell too far out of the playoff race. And still, they fired their manager with 12 games left, they've run Sabathia out on three days rest twice (and they've said they'll do it again if necessary), and they're going to start Gallardo, their ace of the future, tomorrow night, less than five months removed from a torn ACL. Say what you will about the Brewers, but I can't ever remember another team pulling out so many stops for a playoff run. Whether it's worth it or not, well, that's a question that just can't be answered yet.