I hesitate to do this, but here goes anyway.....

As of the close of business on Saturday August 30th, the Brewers record stood at 79 and 56, which was good for a 5 1/2 game wild card lead over both the Cards and the Phillies, who were both 74 and 62. What does that mean, really?

• If the Brewers go about .500, lets say 13-14 the rest of the way that would give them 92 wins and 70 losses. If that happens, to tie the Brewers one of those teams would have to go 18-8 and 19-7 to win outright.

• If the Brewers go 16 and 11 the rest of the way, that gives them 95 wins and one of those other teams would have to go 21-5 to tie or 22-4 to finish ahead of them.

If you're thinking "well, but there are two teams and one of them could very well get that hot" consider this:

• If it is the Phillies that go on some amazing run like that, it is very likely that they would instead win their division and that the Mets would be at least a few games behind, if not more. Lets say in that first case above where the Brewers go 13-14 and the Phillies go 18-8, the Mets would have to go 17-9 in that same time to make the Phillies or Mets WC contenders as opposed to division champs.
• In reality if the Brewers hold serve around .500, there is almost no chance that the loser of the NL East is going to be in the Wild Card race as well. That really just leaves the Cards to worry about in terms of a "late charge"
  

Ok, so how are the Brewers going to get into that 13 to 16 win range that would make it tough to be caught?

• The Brewers play 16 games at home and 11 games on the road.
• They play 10 games at home against the Padres, Pirates and Reds the rest of the way.
• They play 4 games on the road against the Pirates and Reds.
• They also play 6 games at home against the Mets and Cubs and 7 games on the road at Philly and in Chicago.

How will the Aces line up?

• As it sits right now, CC Sabathia and Ben Sheets are in line to start at least 12 of the 27 games if they are needed, though you may see some juggling late if possible that would reduce the number or they could move some starts up to increase the number if they need to.
• CC is in line to face the Pirates, Padres, Reds, Cubs, Reds and Cubs again.
• Ben Sheets is in line to face the Mets, Padres, Phillies, Cubs, Pirates and Cubs again.

• The Cubs will likely be in position to either set up their postseason rotation in that last series at Miller Park or in a tight enough race with the Brewers that we can reasonably assume that both teams are far enough ahead of the third place team that simply "making the playoffs" is no longer a consideration. That would almost certainly mean that they either won't see Zambrano, Harden or Dempster the last two days of the season or simply making the playoffs is a done deal.
  

Does that make anyone feel more at ease about the Brewers postseason chances?

Me neither.