Rent to Own: Brewers Become Full-Fledged NL Central Dynasty with Fourth Straight Division Title

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Let's be honest: "Win the division" is a level the Brewers have beaten so many times that they no longer feel the same surge or thrill in doing it. In fact, there's a little bit of that tight-jawed impatience that creeps into a video-game player forced to repeatedly thwart some minor boss en route to the one they can never beat. This team and its fan base do enjoy the regular season, but until they finish the game and conquer the final boss that is winning a World Series, the six-month grind will continue to feel like something to be gotten through, in preparation for the real test.

Besides, there's little catharsis in winning the way they win it these days. Milwaukee has not only won four straight division titles, but has had each wrapped up well before Game 162. Often, September contains little drama for them. This was true when they won in 2021, too. The only team to beat out Milwaukee in the Central since the lost COVID season, the 2022 Cardinals, was old and forgettable and soon disassembled. It feels like it's been the Crew's division to run as they please for almost a decade, and they've rarely felt the pressure or stress that makes the moment of clinching a division crown so thrilling. Nothing is going to top 2018, when they ran down the Cubs and kicked them out at the finish line.

Still, it's important to exult in moments like Tuesday night. The Brewers took care of business against the Pirates, then watched as the Cubs laid an egg late and cinched the title for them, from several hundred miles away. It was a workmanlike Brewers win, but it did demonstrate why this team is great. Jacob Misiorowski steamrolled Pittsburgh over five scoreless innings, then made an early exit to conserve bullets ahead of the postseason. Aaron Ashby delivered two scoreless, stellar innings, because that's what Aaron Ashby does almost every day. The offense didn't hit any balls over the fence, but they had four doubles and got on base 15 times, and five relatively easy runs trickled across the plate. They can beat you in more ways than anyone else can, and they can beat you more comfortably than anyone else can.

Always a young team, the Brewers run on the high standards of Pat Murphy and the always-fresh energy of their new guys. The plus side of turning over the roster more than any other similarly good team would do is that there are always players in the mix who haven't yet experienced all of this—guys for whom the stakes of these moments don't feel dimmed by the existence of so many previous, similar ones. They're not bored of winning. They're thrilled about it. They just feel a fierce desire to keep it going, so that their detractors and doubters are forced to stop talking about whether teams like this one can win in the postseason.

It's a laughable question; it really is. Only teams like this one can win in the postseason, because this team is great. They have the best pitcher in baseball. They have a remarkably deep bullpen. They have three players (Jackson Chourio, William Contreras and Brice Turang) who are all in their prime, or are just entering it, and who are the best players at their respective positions in baseball when they're going well. They have an All-Star-caliber slugger (Jake Bauers) who has come practically from nowhere, but whose success is not at all a fluke and is likely to continue. They play smart, athletic baseball. They are, to quote their manager and the coded message on the inside of his bicep, "f---ing relentless." There's no important sense in which any other team has a leg up on them.

Maybe that will finally yield a pennant and/or a parade this fall. Maybe it won't. It obviously matters, but it would be silly to suggest that that's all that matters. Winning your division is a real and important achievement in Major League Baseball. Doing it for four years in a row—and making the competition look so overmatched along the way—is a remarkable one. The Brewers have been building equity in the Central since that magical September of 2018. Now, they own it outright. The future is bright, but don't overlook what this team has accomplished already.