EauClaireNWL

This has been two decades plus in the making. From getting Miller Park built and watching Ritchie Sexson and Geoff Genkins and Ben Sheets be a few bright spots in some awful team in's the early '00s including losing a 100+ games in '02. From celebrating going .500 for the first time in 2006 after not having a winning season since 1992. From trading for CC and watching the Marlins beat the Mets in the final game of the regular in '08 to clinch that first playoff birth since '82. From Prince and Brauny and Yo bringing us back to some relevancy in the late aughts and early '10s including a playoff series win in 2011 and two wins away from the World Series . Having some rough stretches in the middle '10s and having to reload this team with Stearns and Arnold coming in and trading for Yeli in 2018 who turned into a superstar player taking that mantle from an aging Brauny and getting one game away from the WS before losing to the Dodgers in the NLCS 4-3. That began a stretch of competitive baseball making the playoffs eight out of the last nine seasons, but could just never get over the hump and we couldn't win a playoff series until we finally beat the Cubs in five last season and then getting absolutely shut down by the Dodgers in the NLCS. To finally starting our revenge tour and setting a franchise record of 103 wins and getting homefield, beating a scrappy Padres team, and finally catching a flailing Dodgers team at the right time and getting over that hump. To say this is huge is and understatement especially if you're a younger fan and have been following this team from the '90s onward.

Can't say the Cards didn't make the Crew earn it! Nice to be able to close it out in the final home game and let these last six games be a tune up. Now the Cards have to face the two-headed NL West monster to advance beyond the NLDS while Milwaukee get the NL LEast winner in the first round!

Even had we beat Washington, I didn't see us beating the Dodgers. Crazier things have happened and maybe had we had Yeli things might've been a bit different, but it was a nice run they had at the end of the year to get in. It'll be interesting to see who Stearns tries to keep and what moves they make. Picking up Anderson's and Thames options seem like no brainers. You probably offer to pick up Grandal and Mous as well, but it wouldn't shock me if they both opt to test free agency.

Just keep winning and putting the pressure on the Nats and Cards!

I'm okay continuing to play hard to try and get the play-in game @ home even if they clinch a spot tomorrow. Less traveling across the country and then having to go on the road to LA for Game 1 of the NLDS if they'd win the WC.

Awesome series win! Can't help but be excited about getting back to the NLCS after losing the Cards back in '11 in six games. Gotta bit of a chance for some redemption after that bad taste left in our mouths. LA will not be easy to beat in seven games even with HFA and I'm sure the broadcasters are praying for an LA-BOS/NYY series for ratings purposes. If this bullpen can stay this lights out and our starters don't completely implode, we gotta legitimate shot at taking the pennant away from LA this year. If they can't take the Dodgers out with the pennant on the line, they'd probably stand little chance against whomever came out of the AL anyways in a WS.

I don't think you could have asked for a better two week stretch in regular season history for the franchise. Absolutely incredible to clinch the playoffs and subsequent division on your rivals homefields, and rattling off 8 straight wins including a tiebreaker on the road to get HFA through the NLCS to do it! The team gets to take a couple deserved days off before beginning the playoffs at home. Pretty good reward for this grind-it-out squad! NL is wide open this year. No reason this team can't at least win the pennant!

Cards are only a game back of the Dodgers for the second wild card with three to play, so they have plenty to play for the next couple of days at least. Lets try to sweep a beatable Tigers club and see where the chips fall come Sunday.

Won 4 straight to clinch a post-season birth. Doing it on the road against a loathed division rival. All the pressure on Chicago tomorrow to keep their scant division lead with St Louis to play them this weekend scratching for their playoff lives. Keep winning this weekend and lets see where the chips fall.

Not going to sit here and say we're king of the hill in April beating up on the Reds and Marlins, but good teams take care of business against bad ones.

I'd rather have two wild cards. Two chances at making a run vs one. Winning a division title is nice, but at the end of the day all it really guarantees you is a spot in the post-season. Legacy's are judged by the number of pennants and world championships a franchise has, and to date, the best this franchise has been able to hang it's hat on is a second place finish 35 years ago.

Wasn't the first time Garza did that in his career either... (Starts at the 2:41 mark)

I loved Prince when he was a Brewer, but Melvin made the right move by extending Braun over Fielder if they were only going to do one or the other back in 2011.

I guess I'm a bit of a realist. They had a really good year despite not making the playoffs. Even had they gotten in and beaten both CO and AZ to get to the NLDS against LA, I didn't see them beating the Dodgers in a five game series with the inconsistent offense and their pitching depth taking the hit it did by losing Nelson. I think they finished at least a good 10 games above what most prognosticators predicted them to finish around at the start of the season. I'm very interested to see what Stearns will do in the off-season to improve the team and how active they might be in free agency. I don't think they really have any over-bloated contracts even with the few years remaining on Braun's deal. Continuing to stay the course and build through the farm system is never the sexiest move, but I trust Stearns to keep up the good job he's been doing in the two years he's had at the helm so far.

9-18 in the first 27 games coming out of the all-star break. If there was a nearly one month stretch that cost them the playoffs, it was that part of the season. Even 12-15 during that stretch gets them 89 wins and into the playoffs.

He was pretty bad towards the end of the year. I don't even know if they would have picked up his option had it been available at $5 million next season. It's addition by subtraction frankly and a 40 man roster spot that can be better used on a youngster that can contribute long term.

Just the fact the team is playing meaningful games in September is a plus. They've already surpassed last years win total by six games and they still have two weeks to go. 88 wins minimum is probably where they need to be targeting to have a chance at catching the cubs, so 9-4 is doable the last 13, but we're going to have to hope for either the Cubbies or Rockies to fall off a bit and the consistency to keep up.

Even the best case scenario for the Cubs and they go on a second half run and take the division, unless some of their bats can get back into 2016 form, I don't see them beating the Dodgers in a 7 game series even with this move.

I know the Brewers haven't played the Yankees much since moving to the NL, but this was apparently the teams first win in NY since 1996.

Worse case scenario this is a "deck chair shuffle" caliber move and you paid little except a slight increase in payroll to do it in a rebuilding year. Best case scenario he splits time and finds some offense again and upgrades the catching depth in the process.

Just to put this season into perspective compared to a year ago. The team didn't hit the 40 win mark until July 20th nearly a week after the all star break when they were 40-52. They were 34-41 after 75 games last year.

I still think a lot of us expect at some point for the light to magically flick on for the Cubs and they'll start running away with this thing. If we were playing in any other division, we'd be 5+ games back like the Wild Card. I figured this team had the potential to play .500 baseball and they've been generally sticking to that which still puts us ahead of the rebuilding curve by at least a full season. I guess the biggest fear would be Stearns being a heavy buyer at the deadline when it's just prudent to stay the course and continue to let the young guys develop. Thankfully nothing I've really seen from him in his roster moves would make me think he'd do that.

Winning ugly, but I'll take a sweep after being down 7-1 in that one. I felt on paper the current roster coming out of Spring had a chance to at least be a .500 squad if things went right. They'll probably go through some tough stretches at some point, but it's nice to see the wins when they get them. Stearns has done a good job in under two years of turning over the big league roster and fielding a competitive squad again. Obviously what many felt might have been a 4+ year rebuilding project might be turning around a bit quicker.

I was there for that Saturday game. Still have the Brewers clock they gave away to fans from that day. ~o)