Rolling out of bed on Monday, September 1, 2008, you grab the morning paper and open it up to the standings. After a brutal series in Pittsburgh, where Tom Gorzelanny and Jeff Karstens got back on track, and Paul Maholm shut down the Brewers, with Jeff Suppan and C.C. Sabathia getting rocked and the Brewers bullpen blowing a quality start for Bush, you're none too pleased with your 77-59 Brewers.

Even worse, down at Wrigley Field, the Phillies marched into Chicago and whipped the Cubs, with strong bullpen performances in two close games to support Cole Hamels and Joe Blanton, a quality start from Brett Myers, and Jamie Moyer tossing an unofficial no-hitter to close out the series.

After the dust settles from the weekend, the Phillies stood less than one game away from the Brewers in the NL Wild Card race, and the Brewers remained 5.5 games behind the Cubs for the division.

Or, imagine that the Cubs gave the Phillies all they could handle, sweeping Philadelphia to run their division lead over the Crew to 9.5 games, keeping the Brewers 4.5 games ahead of the Phillies for the division.

Those were the three worst case outcomes for the weekend (Brewers are swept, Phillies sweep Cubs to gain WC ground, Cubs sweep Phillies to gain division ground).

Not one of them happened!

Instead, the Brewers visited Pittsburgh and treated them to three strong pitching performances, including an unofficial no-hitter by C.C. Sabathia to close out the sweep of the Pirates. Even better, the Crew offense came alive in two of three games, and in the only close game of the series, the bullpen held off the Pirates.

Philadelphia and Chicago, meanwhile, saw no sweeps, from either side. After tearing apart the Phillies bullpen for two consecutive nights to open the series, the Cubs lost the final two games of the series, which meant that the Phillies overcame the 0-2 series start to salvage a split.

There were no worst case scenarios, and no best case scenarios this weekend -- with a Brewers sweep of the Pirates, a Phillies sweep would have meant an NL Central race within 3.0 G, and a Cubs sweep would have meant a WC lead of 7.5 G for the Brewers.

Instead, the Brewers controlled their own destiny, and won the games in front of them, and caught the mean of the Cubs/Phillies series: the Brewers gained 1.5 G on the Cubs in the division, and 1.5 G on the Phillies in the WC.

This is not a best case scenario weekend in terms of math, but it might actually be the most practically advantageous outcome because the events of the weekend prove just how valuable controlling one's own destiny can be.

A great lesson: all the Crew needs to do is take care of the games ahead of themselves, and the rest takes care of itself -- all the better when a Brewers sweep is accompanied by two contenders beating up on one another.