Surprise package Brewers seek to keep up pace

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - The Milwaukee Brewers have been Major League Baseball's surprise team this season after making a fast start, but sceptics wonder whether they can keep up the pace and win a spot in the playoffs.

The "Brew Crew" rushed to the top of the National League's Central Division with the help of the home run power of youngsters J.J. Hardy and Prince Fielder, sound starting pitching and defense, and dominant closer Francisco Cordero.

Yet with a 27-17 record and 118 games left in the season after a victory on Sunday, there is a long way to go for the Brewers to earn a berth in postseason play. Manager Ned Yost said he just wanted the wins to mount up, one at a time.

"I'm trying to get (win) 26 and then 27 tomorrow," he said on Thursday before playing the Philadelphia Phillies on the road.

The Brewers then got win number 26 that night by beating the Phillies then lost two games to the Minnesota Twins before getting win number 27 with a 6-5 victory on Sunday over the Twins.

The Brewers do not have a big-name player like Alex Rodriguez of the New York Yankees or Albert Pujols of the St. Louis Cardinals who can carry a club for long stretches. Yet Yost, in his fifth season as manager, said he had the overall talent that allowed him to rest injured players.

"I've got more depth on this team than we've ever had before," he said. "I feel we have six guys from the outfield who can play every day and six guys in the infield who can play every day."

A case in point is outfielder Geoff Jenkins, who for 10 years had been the best player on mediocre-to-bad Brewers teams despite offensive production that did not measure up to the top players in the league. With the improved talent around him, Jenkins is just one of many players Yost is inserting in the line-up as needed.

Scepticism among sports writers and baseball fans over whether the Brewers are contenders is rooted in history -- it has been 15 years since their last winning season and 25 since they made postseason play, in 1982. In 2002 they lost a team record 106 games.

POWER SURGE

From the outset, though, this season has been different. The club went 16-9 in April and at one point in early May had the best record in Majors before hitting a rough patch when they lost seven of nine before Sunday's victory.

Hall of Fame pitcher Don Sutton, a member of the 1982 team, said the Brewers' ability to overcome losing streaks would indicate whether they were real contenders.

"Every team hits a stretch when nothing is clicking and it has to manufacture wins. That is the test the Brewers still have to pass this year," Sutton, now a broadcaster for the Washington Nationals, said on the MASN channel last week.

The Brewers slugged their way to the top with a power surge, led by shortstop Hardy, who leads the National League in homers with 14 and runs batted in with 41.

"It's fun for all of us," he said. "It's fun to be leading in our division as a team and being 10 games above 500. We're playing good baseball."

Fielder, the burly first baseman who is among the league leaders in homers with 12, was named National League player of the week in April, during a week that demonstrated the team's depth with Hardy and pitchers Jeff Suppan and Carlos Villanueva also nominated for the award.

PLAYER MIX

Infielder Craig Counsell likened the Brewers to the 1997 World Series champions Florida Marlins, with whom he played, because of their consistent pitching and mix of young and old players.

"It's important to keep consistent," he said.

He praised Cordero, who leads the Majors with 17 saves, having converted all of his save opportunities. "Our closer has been perfect. He's been huge nailing down games for us," he said.

Milwaukee has an annual payroll of $71 million, the 19th largest of the 30 Major League teams, according to USA Today. That is up more than $10 million from last year but well below big market teams like the Yankees and Boston Red Sox.

Most of the wins have come at home. An upcoming West Coast stretch against the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres, two top clubs in their division, might show whether the Brewers are real contenders.

Will they be this year's edition of the 2006 Detroit Tigers or 2005 Chicago White Sox, who experts said would be mediocre but who played their way to the World Series, with the Sox winning?

Yost thinks the answer is yes.

"We have to stay healthy, number one. But we gotta go out every day and match up ... If our players play better than their players, we're going to be in great shape. Do we have players who are capable of doing that? You're darn right we do."