Rozner: Brewers not afraid of Cubs, Cards
When the Cubs get to Milwaukee on Friday for the final leg of this long road trip to start the season, they will find a Brewers team that looks a lot like the team that chased them down in September and ultimately defeated them in Game 163.
Just as important, however, is the posture of their Wisconsin neighbors.
It's not just that the Brewers are a confident team. It's not just that they don't fear the Cubs or Cardinals, though that's a pretty big deal. It's also that they are a very loose club as they begin the 2019 season.
While the Cubs seem to be feeling the pressure, and talk an awful lot about how important this season is, the Brewers are having a blast.
Kind of reminds you of the Cubs from a few years ago, when the game was fun for the North Siders and nothing seemed to affect them.
Spend a day with the Brewers and you get the impression that they are confined in no way, and we don't need to tell you that without pressure the game is much easier to play.
Of course, when you're good and think you're better than everyone else, there's no reason to feel the pressure of expectations.
"We respect the teams in the division. It's a really good division," said reigning MVP Christian Yelich, who stole the award from Javy Baez with a ridiculous September. "But we won the division last season. We think we can win it again. We think we're good enough to do that."
The Brewers did take out the Cubs, swept the Rockies in the NLDS and took the Dodgers seven games in the NLCS, along the way collecting a swagger they have carried into 2019.
"We expect more of the same this year," said Lorenzo Cain, who won the opener for the Brewers by robbing the Cards' Jose Martinez of a game-tying home run with two outs in the ninth. "The division is really good. It seems like everyone got better.
"But we like where we are. We had a great run at the end of last year. We have a confident group. We respect the teams in the division, but we're not afraid.
"We just have to bring the same intensity and mindset we had last September to the entire season."
The Brewers (3-1) have bullpen issues with Corey Knebel gone for the year (Tommy John) and Jeremy Jeffress rehabbing a shoulder, and their rotation is quite young, Milwaukee again choosing not to address that in the off-season.
Through 4 starts, the rotation has allowed 6 home runs in 18⅓ innings with a 1.55 WHIP, 6.39 ERA and 27 strikeouts against 7 walks.
It's only four games, but the rotation would appear to be a concern, yet the Brewers don't seem worried about anything, and it doesn't hurt that Yelich looks like the same guy who won the MVP in 2018.
Yelich is hitting .500 with 6 walks, 8 RBI and an OPS of 2.250 - that's not a misprint - after he beat the Cards 5-4 in the bottom of the ninth Sunday with a double to score a pair.
He also tied a major-league record Sunday by homering in each of his team's first four games to start a season, adding his name to Willie Mays (1971), Mark McGwire (1998), Nelson Cruz (2011), Chris Davis (2013) and Trevor Story (2016). McGwire and Davis went on to lead their leagues in homers those years.
Yelich doesn't need to do that for the Brewers to be successful, but his start bodes well for a team that hadn't convinced everyone they were ready to compete again in 2019, especially given their early-season schedule.
The Cubs have a much easier start, albeit based on last season's records, while the Brewers have the toughest schedule the first two months of any team in baseball.
"We all have to play the same teams," Cain said. "Doesn't matter when you play them. It all evens out. No one here is worried about it."
That would aptly sum up the Brewers' attitude about pretty much everything.
It's no guarantee of success, but being loose after going to the seventh game of the NLCS last year is a pretty nice place to start.