I am highly dubious about the premise of this Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story:

The math keeps getting better for the Milwaukee Brewers.

After sweeping the Los Angeles Dodgers in improbable and relentless fashion, the Brewers now have the best record in the National League at 70 wins and 55 losses, and lead the St. Louis Cardinals by three games in the National League Central.

The Brewers can go 18-19 down the stretch while the Cardinals would have to finish 22-17 just to force a tie for the division lead.

With fewer than 40 games to go, how likely is it that the Brewers make the playoffs? I compiled a handful of projections and put them in a table:

Brewers’ playoff odds, as of 08/17
FanGraphs’ projections mode	82.9%
Baseball Prospectus’ playoff odds report	88.4%
Sports Clubs Stats’ projections	94.7%

Those percentages all went up compared with last week’s projections.

For a further explanation on the accuracy of baseball forecasting and why I use FanGraphs’ data, click here.

Click on the link, and you’ll get additional data, if that’s what you want to call this, about the Brewers’ chances beyond just getting into the playoffs as of earlier this week.

The more up to date data can be found at FanGraphs, and you get a different set of predictions there. Those projections have the Brewers and Cardinals tying for the NL Central title, with 88 wins each. The Brewers there, as of Wednesday, had a 52.8-percent chance of winning the NL Central, where the Cardinals had a 42.9 percent chance of winning the Central. That may seem like a lot, but it is actually the second closest projection (the closest is the AL Central).

One reason you probably shouldn’t buy this is that the Brewers and the Cardinals have seven games against each other in September. The Brewers are 5–7 against the Cardinals, and the Cardinals made trades to get better pitching (though that pitching hasn’t been better so far), and the Brewers haven’t. What would be worse, frankly, is for a repeat of 2011 — the Brewers get the wins over the Cardinals in the regular season, and then the Cardinals get the last laugh in the postseason.

The other is that this tries to predict based on past performance. If you believe the Brewers have been playing over their heads (suffice to say that no one was predicting the Brewers would be in first place in late August), regression to the mean predicts an ugly September, particularly given their schedule (harder than the Cardinals’ schedule) and their lack of big-game-experienced pitching.

Even if you buy this, you shouldn’t get your hopes up of a deep playoff run. The Brewers have just an 8.8-percent chance of getting to the World Series and a 2.8-percent chance of winning the World Series.

This Debbie Downer act of mine (but I am far from the only fan who feels this way) disgusts Gene Mueller:

The Brewers are atop the National League Central by three games as the new week begins, fresh off a sweep of the Los Angeles freakin’ Dodgers.  It’s a lofty perch they’ve held since well-before you mailed in your income taxes.  Think about that for a second, fans: a club given paltry-at-best chances of contending has been in first place for more than four months. …

But from Opening Day on, when the team’s early success was a pleasant surprise until these back-to-school-days of summer, there’s been an undercurrent flowing among fans, one that oozes doom and gloom, one that reeks of pending despair.

Jonathan Lucroy is an MVP candidate. Aramis Ramirez is strong and steady at third. Carlos Gomez is remains a beast.  Ryan Braun fights gamely on even though he’s left with only one functioning opposable thumb.  Starting pitching? No worries–beyond a pleasant surprise, in fact.  So what’s not to love?  Why are so many True Blue members of the Brew Crew so…blue?

They worry about Braun’s functionality. They fret about first base where Lyle Overbay isn’t the doubles machine we loved during his first tour of duty and where Mark Reynolds is prone to the whiff between prodigious homers.  They don’t care to see Rickey Weeks sharing time with Scooter Gennett at second. They worry about Jean Segura’s slide at the plate, and Khris Davis’ issues in left field. And, they live in mortal fear about the bullpen.

Solid points, indeed, but enough to take the shine off what’s been a season for the ages so far?

A team is the sum of its parts and the bottom line for the Brewers so far is that it’s a club good enough to lead a division where no one’s caught fire.  The Cards, Pirates and Reds haven’t gone on any daunting win streaks, but then again, Milwaukee hasn’t, either.  The Brewers July swoon served to fortify the doubters, and the lack of a torrid streak keeps many wondering when the other shoe is going to drop.

St. Louis is always a threat, and the Redbirds are due to get some starting pitchers back in September, just in time for the kind of run many fear could undo the Brewers–there’s something about that red parakeet that strikes fear in the heart of even the most fervid Milwaukee seam head–while Pittsburgh and Cincinnati are contending despite injuries to key position players.  It would be nice to see some of these clubs falter, but that hasn’t been the case.

The big worries for Brewers fans should be injury and the pop-gun offense: the team lacks depth among position players and losing a big bat could be a death knell.  The attack?  Milwaukee seems to score just enough to get by but too often goes into funks that leave its hitters estranged from home plate.  It’s those kind of slumps that can be enough to thwart a late-season push during a critical series, or bounce a team from the playoffs in an early round.

The trade deadline came and went with GM Doug Melvin making a deal for another outfielder, Gold Glover Gerardo Parra.  It wasn’t enough for some fans, but the asking price for other available talent seemed too high with more than a few clubs hot for Jimmy Nelson.  Sometimes, the best trade is the one you DON’T make.  That said, don’t think Melvin is done looking for help, as deals can still get done (once those involved clear waivers).  He’s not the kind of guy to sit on his hands, especially when the club is this close to the playoffs.

Cheer up, Brewers Nation!  This is the kind of season many dreamed of but few thought would happen.  Not only is your team contending in a tough division, it’s leading the pack in late August. This could be a fantastic late summer that could segue into an exciting autumn.  And, even if the worst happens, how can anyone say they’re disappointed by the kind of baseball we’ve been treated to in 2014 (factoring out a large hunk of July, of course)?

Well, for one thing, 88 projected wins isn’t that impressive, even if it’s second best in the National League. That right there probably tells you what you need to know, that the National League isn’t very good this year. The Cardinals’ odds of winning the World Series are 5.3 percent, which indirectly proves a point about the value of pitching in a short playoff series. And Melvin has nine days to get better pitching before the playoff roster deadline.