Brewers feeling at home in NL Central
Posted: Mon April 27, 1998 at 6:23 PM ET
ST. LOUIS (CNN/SI) -- No one gave a lot of thought to the Milwaukee Brewers before this baseball season. They were kind of a novelty, switching from the American to the National League, but they weren't considered a serious contender for a division crown.
Well, if you haven't noticed the Brewers, maybe you'd better start.
They're leading the NL Central, playing great defense, getting some good pitching and some decent offense -- in short, at this point of the season, the Brewers have proven that they're at home in the National League.
A lot of the Brewers' success has to be attributed to Phil Garner, their manager. This is a guy who played a long time in the National League -- 14 years with the Pittsburgh Pirates, Houston Astros, Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants -- so he knows what it takes to win in the NL. Even though he's coming from the American League, his philosophy is classic National League: Good defense, combined with good and timely hitting, will win you a lot of ballgames.
The American League always has been more of a power league. They don't look for guys who play defense. They're after the guys who can hit the ball hard. National League ballparks, on the other hand, usually are more spacious, so you need to have guys who can cover some ground and play defense -- not necessarily be the hulking hitters that you see in the AL.
The Brewers are as National League as they come. They've committed 15 errors in 23 games and have a fielding percentage of .983. They have a team ERA of just over 3.00, and they have a good stopper in Doug Jones, who has eight saves already, tied for the major league lead. They have some power in Jeromy Burnitz (seven home runs, 22 RBIs) and Jose Valentin (6, 16), but that's not where their strength lies.
The fact that the Brewers have jumped out to such a good start -- considering they're playing in new ballparks, learning a new routine, staying in new places, eating in new restaurants -- probably makes them the biggest surprise of the early part of the season.
The question now is whether they can keep it up.
The NL Central is not the strongest division in baseball, by any stretch. But that doesn't matter to the Brewers. They're winning, and they're leading the division.
It proves one thing: If you're fundamentally sound, it doesn't matter where you play.
The 6-4-3 with Ozzie: What was Durwood Merrill thinking?
The veteran American League umpire has written a book "You're Out and You're Ugly, Too!," in which he takes some shots at players. He calls Paul O'Neill of the New York Yankees the "No. 1 whiner" in the league and, among other things, says Texas Rangers outfielder Juan Gonzalez needs to learn to play with pain.
All the book is going to do is cause a lot of confrontations that may not have occurred otherwise.
How nasty could it get? There are a lot of games left to be played, a lot of opportunities for Merrill and some players to meet out on the field.
A close play at home with Merrill making the call? A disputed third strike? A bang-bang play at first in an important late-season series?
Watch out.
Ozzie Smith is the baseball analyst for CNN/SI. His column appears every Monday on CNNSI.com.
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