by Wisconsin State Journal

That didn't happen. But after the Brewers dropped a 1-0 decision to the New York Mets Wednesday afternoon at Miller Park, we now know that the difference between good and great is painfully small.

"It was pretty much a game of inches today," Macha said.

Indeed, if the two balls Prince Fielder crushed hadn't been right at someone, if Jason Kendall's potential RBI double in the second inning hadn't dropped a couple of inches foul and if the leadoff double New York's Luis Castillo hit in the sixth hadn't dropped a couple of inches fair (setting up the game's only run), the Brewers would have been so happy they might have skipped all the way to Chicago for a four-game showdown with the arch-rival Cubs that starts tonight.

Guess what? They'll take it anyway.

"Overall, (it was) a good series, a pretty solid homestand," slugger Ryan Braun said. "We're excited about going to Chicago."

They should be. When they returned home after a three-game interleague wipeout in Detroit, the Brewers had fallen to second place in the National League Central Division. More important, they weren't hitting, weren't pitching and at times weren't even competing. They played their poorest game of the season in losing the homestand's opening game to Minnesota, a sloppy 7-3 loss that some think prompted Macha's first clubhouse blowup as manager.

Just when it looked like the Brewers were going to bow out of the division race, however, they showed the resiliency that has come to define this club. It helped that the Cubs and St. Louis Cardinals started losing, but the Brewers split their last two games with the Twins and won two of three against both the Mets and San Francisco Giants, taking a couple of them with late-inning rallies.

The Brewers had hoped for better than a 5-4 record on the homestand, but even after Wednesday's disappointing loss they couldn't discount the gains they made at home. In nine games against teams with legitimate playoff aspirations, they regained first place and their equilibrium. They rediscovered the every-pitch competitiveness they need to win given their shortage of starting pitching.

"I think we got a lot of guys going offensively," Braun said of the homestand. "We had some good at-bats against some good pitchers. I think we swung the bats pretty well with runners in scoring position. The starting pitching, everybody threw the ball pretty well. Overall, we're definitely playing well. Chicago should be a good test to see where we're at."

It won't be the only test. After Chicago, the Brewers return home to play three-game series against St. Louis, which is in second place in the Central, and the Los Angeles Dodgers, who have by far the best record in the NL.

When those 10 games are completed, the Brewers should head into the All-Star break with a pretty good idea of whether they're capable of staying in contention all the way to October. The most positive sign during the homestand was that hitters such as J.J. Hardy, Corey Hart, Casey McGehee and Kendall finally started giving Braun and Fielder some much-needed help.

They'll have to keep it up because, on paper anyway, the Cubs have Baseball's best starting rotation and the Brewers will be facing Chicago's big four of Ryan Dempster, Carlos Zambrano, Rich Harden and Ted Lilly.

"It's interesting," Macha said. "They always get those guys lined up for us."

Welcome to the rivalry, Ken. At least the Brewers have confidence they can score runs like they did earlier in the season.

"They don't really have any bad starting pitching," Braun said of the Cubs. "All five of their guys are pretty good and obviously the four guys we get are all basically No. 1 and No. 2-type starters. It'll be a good gauge of where we're at. It's important for us to finish off the first half strong and have some momentum going into the second half."

It's important because in the Central Division the difference between good and great is extremely small.

Contact Tom Oates at toates@madison.com or 608-252-6172.

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