The Milwaukee Brewers currently have the largest division lead in baseball. For the first time this season they extended that margin to double digits as they defeated the Cleveland Guardians 5-3 on Friday night as both the Cincinnati Reds and St. Louis Cardinals lost. Given the Brewers comfortable division lead it may be time for fans to start scoreboard watching elsewhere.
Willy Adames powers the Milwaukee Brewers past the Cleveland Guardians on Friday night.
A lot of action occurred during the first inning of the Brewers and Guardians game on Friday night. Jackson Chourio got the teams first hit of the game with an electrifying triple that he hit to left field. Unfortunately he was then caught in no mans land when the next batter, Tyler Black, hit a comebacker to the mound and Chourio was tagged out.
From there the Brewers rallied with two outs as William Contreras was hit by a pitch and then Willy Adames launched a massive home run into the Toyota Territory. That three run home run was his 10th of the season and Milwaukee held the lead from there as they ultimately won by a score of 5-3.
The Cincinnati Reds and St. Louis Cardinals both lost on Friday, August 16.
Chasing the Brewers in the National League Central is the Cincinnati Reds and St. Louis Cardinals. Both teams currently have records of 60-62 and are 10 games behind Milwaukee. The Reds lost to the Royals Friday night by a score of 7-1 and the Cardinals dropped their fifth straight game as they were defeated by the Dodgers.
Bringing up the bottom of the division is the Chicago Cubs and Pittsburgh Pirates. The Cubs have a 60-63 record and are 10.5 games back in the division whereas the Pirates are 57-64 and 12.5 games back. Pittsburgh snapped a 10 game losing streak on Friday with a victory of the Mariners.
Milwaukee Brewers fans should be scoreboard watching elsewhere.
In baseball you never want to get comfortable, but with six weeks left in the regular season it would be astonishing to see a team come back and win the division over the Brewers. That being said it may be time to start scoreboard watching the Philadelphia Phillies, Los Angeles Dodgers, Arizona Diamondbacks, and San Diego Padres as Milwaukee will be competing for the first and second seeds in the playoffs against these teams.
Currently the Phillies have the best record in the league at 72-70, but have just a half game lead over the Dodgers and two game lead over the Brewers. The National League West division race is starting to heat up as the Dodgers have a three game lead over the Arizona Diamondbacks and San Diego Padres (both have records of 69-54).
The Brewers have seven games left against the Arizona Diamondbacks this year and three against the Philadelphia Phillies. Winning season series against these teams will be important for tie-breaker purposes in which the Brewers and Diamondbacks have not faced each other yet this season and the Phillies previously swept the Brewers in a three games series. San Diego owns the tie breaker over Milwaukee as the Padres won five out of seven games this year.
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