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| Milwaukee, Miller Park |
Brewers manager Ned Yost acknowledges he isn't good at
math and even got a "D" in geometry. He only needs simple addition to
determine just how bad Milwaukee has played this week.With first place in the
NL Central on the line, the Cubs rolled into town and never looked back,
completing a four-game sweep with an 11-4 victory on Thursday."They kicked
our butts," Craig Counsell said. "They played about as well as a team
can play and we didn't."Chicago scored 31 runs to 11 for the Brewers and
it could have been much worse after the NL Central leaders left 35 men on base
over four games."They did everything right this series," Yost said.
"They pitched great, they made every play defensively, they found every
hole offensively. Everything went right for them. When that is happening,
confidence is sky high."Milwaukee starts a six- game road trip on Friday
and is two wins away from the longest road winning streak in franchise history
at nine."We're playing so well on the road now," Yost said.
"It'll be nice to get away, just go some place where there's not a
freaking billion Cubs fans."And that was part of the problem. A short
drive up I-94, Chicago invaded Miller Park - or "Wrigley North" as
Cubs fans love to call it - and dominated from the start as the games drew more
than 180,000 fans.Chicago scored first all four games and only trailed for one
inning on Monday night.The Cubs topped Milwaukee's pair of aces - reigning AL
Cy Young winner CC Sabathia and NL All-Star starter Ben Sheets - and showed
their pitching strength with Ted Lilly, Carlos Zambrano, Ryan Dempster and Rich
Harden."They did a good job of doing everything they could possibly
do," Brewers center fielder Mike Cameron said. "We just didn't swing
the bats that well. They threw some good pitchers at us and they did a good
job."Milwaukee has been part of another ugly sweep this season, when the
Brewers lost three straight in Boston in May to fall to 20-24. But Milwaukee
went 39-19 from that point to set up this series and erased the Cubs' five-game
lead in the NL Central on Saturday in a span of nine days."After Boston, I
felt like we didn't expect to win. I think we expect to win, they're just a lot
better than we are right now," said slugger Ryan Braun, who finished the
series 4-for-15 with seven strikeouts. "Bottom line, they've outplayed us
in every facet of the game. They've been a lot better than us. It has nothing
to do with our approach or our expectations or anything like that. They've just
been better than us."Now the Brewers are behind by five games
again."Seriously, what this is is a dress rehearsal for September,"
Yost said. "There's no real penalty for it."It just means our work
was going to be a little bit easier or our work's going to be a little bit
harder," he said. "As you can see, we didn't pass this first test
real well. But that doesn't mean anything. We'll regroup and get back again in
September, it'll be here again and this time it'll count."Yost said the
young Brewers never panicked even as things quickly turned sour from the start
against the Cubs."They have not freaked out and they've continued to come
to the park every day ready to go," Yost said. "When they get
uptight, then I get uptight. When they're relaxed, then I'm relaxed."At
that point, a reporter pointed at the sharp object sitting on Yost's
desk."It's called a letter opener," Yost said.Braun agreed that the
hype surrounding the July series made the games seem more important."It's
not the end of the world," Braun said. "In the end, it's no more
significant than any other game in any series."Plus, Milwaukee will get
another chance. The clubs play six more times in the final 12 games, including
a three-game regular season finale at Miller Park, where Chicago is 8-2 since
2007."It definitely will not be a happy plane ride to Atlanta," Yost
said. "This is not a death sentence by any means. If this was September,
it would be different. We have plenty of time to recover from this and get back
on track."
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