MILWAUKEE -- One of the beautiful things about baseball is that no matter what happened today, there’s almost always a game tomorrow.
In this case, a big game for the Brewers.
So they will shrug off most of what transpired in Sunday’s 7-4 loss to the Rangers at American Family Field -- a long slog for starter Dustin May, Brewers defenders and hitters alike, notwithstanding Gary Sánchez’s 200th career home run -- and look ahead to baseball’s proverbial tomorrow. Monday brings the opener of a four-game series against the Cubs at Wrigley Field, where the NL Central’s top two teams will begin a stretch of seven games over the next 10 potentially pivotal days.
The Brewers enter this stretch of the schedule in a commanding position, 7 1/2 games ahead of the Cubs in the division standings pending Chicago's game against the Reds later Sunday night. And in case tiebreakers come into play, the Brewers also lead the season series so far against the Cubs, 4-2.
“It’s hard to not get lost in all of that, but it just comes down to winning every night,” said left-hander Kyle Harrison, who will be on the mound for Milwaukee on Monday night opposite Cubs scheduled starter Clay Holmes. “That’s all you can think about in a series like this, just be the best version of yourself each night.”
The Brewers were not the best versions of themselves on Sunday afternoon. Milwaukee hitters couldn’t capitalize on a day that Rangers starter Kumar Rocker walked four batters and threw a whopping 86 pitches in three innings, but yielded only two runs -- both in the first inning before he recorded his first out.
It was a similar grind for May, who was back on the mound after allowing seven runs in two innings against the Mariners on Aug. 19, then getting knocked out of Wednesday’s start against the Mets after one pitch when a comebacker struck him in the right upper back. Against the Rangers, he never found a rhythm. He needed 97 pitches for 13 outs. In the first three innings, Rangers hitters were 4-for-8 against May with three doubles, a home run, a walk and a hit-by-pitch after there were two outs. In the fifth, May walked the first two hitters and then gave up a one-out, two-run double to Ezequiel Duran for a 4-2 Texas lead.
May said he felt physically fine, and summed it up like this in a not-safe-for-work postgame media scrum: “It sucks to be sucking right now.”
“You can blame it on a lot of things, but, I mean, we’re in September. There’s really no excuses,” he said. “I have to be better.”
He’ll be a spectator over the next four days at Wrigley Field.
“These are big games,” May said. “I’m glad I didn’t have this [stinker] against them.”
The Brewers haven’t had many of those lately. They are heading into Wrigley Field riding a stretch of winning five consecutive series against the Dodgers, Mariners, Braves, Mets and Rangers.
“There’s a lot of things to like,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy said. “Our defense and baserunning have got to be part of our game every time. The pitching has been great. Offensively, I think with William [Contreras] and [Christian] Yelich much better than they have been recently, that is encouraging. …
“I think there’s good signs, but we need to play with a certain intensity. It will be a great opportunity in a great environment.”
Harrison is like most Major Leaguers in that he doesn’t comb the standings every morning, but he certainly knows the storylines across the sport. It’s hard not to, when players spend so many hours in clubhouses where all of the televisions are tuned to MLB Network.
It would take a much deeper dive to know what the models think of the Brewers’ chances to hang on in the NL Central. Going into Sunday’s games, FanGraphs’ simulations had Milwaukee a 97.6 percent favorite to win the division and 90.8 percent to finish as one of the NL’s top two seeds and claim a first-round postseason bye.
None of that matters when the teams take the field on Monday night.
“We know what we need to do,” Harrison said. “We just need to take care of playing good, winning baseball, just like ‘Murph’ said at the beginning of the season. If we focus on winning series from this point on, we’ll be in a good spot.”