For one night anyway, Brewers able to smile

Thanks to a hearty wind blowing in over the left- field bleachers, the game-time temperature at Wrigley Field on Wednesday night was about 20 degrees cooler than the previous evening.

Evidently a perfect atmosphere for the free-falling Milwaukee Brewers, who responded to the cool conditions by showing -- for one night at least -- that they still have some ice water in their veins.

On a night they almost absolutely, positively, had to come away with a victory, they did, topping Carlos Zambrano and the Cubs 6-1 in front of a restless but well-layered sellout.

So at least for the time being, things are good again for the Brewers, who pulled to within 1½ games of the first-place Cubs, leapfrogging St. Louis for second place in the process.

"The ship feels like it's sinking, but our guys are in the boat pushing the water out," said Brewers manager Ned Yost. "It doesn't feel like that to them. We've just tried to stay steady in our mindset."

The return of an ace starter like Ben Sheets will steady any team's mind. That's just what Sheets (11-4) did Wednesday, tossing 6 innings of 1-run ball and looking nothing like a guy who had missed nearly a month-and-a-half of action because of an injured finger.

"I was a little nervous at the beginning with the finger and all," Yost said. "But when he threw that first pitch 95 mph, I relaxed a little bit. That was a huge win, and for Benny to be a part of it was big, but it wasn't for Benny, it was for us."

It certainly was a team effort. The Milwaukee offense -- keyed by Ryan Braun and Geoff Jenkins with 2 RBI apiece -- exploded for 4 runs in the seventh inning to open a big lead, and for the first time in awhile, the beleagured Brewers bullpen made it stand up.

"Everybody contributed to the win tonight and that's what we needed," Braun said. "At this point of the year almost every game is a must win. Tonight was huge and tomorrow is obviously of the same magnitude.'

"We put it all together tonight," Sheets said. "We feel as a team we got better today. It was a good step."

And one Sheets couldn't wait to experience after watching from the sidelines as his teammates floundered through the late summer.

"It was an empty feeling," he admitted. "You wait seven years to be part of something like this and then not to be a part of it in August is tough. But there's a month left still."

And Braun and the boys are thinking big: "We could easily turn it around and start playing as well as we were for the majority of the season."