Central just starting to heat up
It's going to get hot. A lot hot.
August arrives next week, mind you. And while the Cubs and the Milwaukee Brewers won't play each other until five weeks from today, when they open a three-game series Aug. 28 at Wrigley Field, the NL Central race is sure to heat up.
Over the next 35 days, the Cubs and the Brewers face the same eight opponents -- St. Louis, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, New York, Houston, Colorado, San Francisco and Arizona.
Heading into their game at Cincinnati on Monday night, the Brewers (55-43) led the second-place Cubs (51-46) by 3ˆ¨ games.
"(August), usually it's the hottest month of the year and the season starts getting into its fifth month," said manager Lou Piniella, whose Cubs play the first of three at St. Louis tonight, before traveling to Cincinnati for the weekend.
"It's no longer a marathon. You start getting into more of a quicker pace. If you know that September's rolling around, that's when you have to push yourself, and that's really when you have to rest your team.
"Hopefully, the way we're starting to situate ourselves, we'll have that luxury."
The Cubs and the Brewers will play the majority of their games the next five weeks on the road. Which might be good news for the Cubs, since the Brewers headed into Monday night's game having lost eight of their last 11 road contests. The Brewers were only 19-26 away from home, 36-17 at Miller Park.
"Every game is important from this game out," Brewers manager Ned Yost told www.brewers.com prior to his team's first of four games at Cincinnati. "Especially against a team we haven't seen much (only twice). It will be interesting to play them.
"They've been through a lot of changes. They've had a managerial change (Pete Mackanin replaced Jerry Narron). So it will be a big series as we try to play good baseball on the road."
The Brewers will play only 12 games at home before visiting Wrigley Field next month, and half of those will be against the NL East-leading Mets (55-43) and the Phillies (50-48).
The Cubs, in comparison, will play the Mets and the Phillies at home next week. The Cubs finally have heated up at the Friendly Confines, going 7-3 on their just-concluded homestand despite losing back-to-back games to Arizona over the weekend.
"You can't win every day," said Piniella, whose team has raised its Wrigley record to 27-24 and will play 14 of its next 33 at home. "Everybody wants that, but it's impossible. These teams that we're playing are competitive and they're good, and they're here for a purpose, to beat you."
If the Cubs and the Brewers both have success against the Cardinals, it could become a two-team race in the Central. But don't tell that to Piniella.
"The Central teams are getting better," he said. "I noticed that Cincinnati is playing better baseball. Houston's starting to play. St. Louis has been steadily playing. It's going to be an interesting two months of August and September.
"We're going to be in our division, so these games are obviously very important. You go from there."