NOTE: OnMilwaukee.com will have more on the Brewers' NL Central title throughout the weekend. Check back for updates.
You knew ... you just knew that this is how it was going to go down.
Yovani Gallardo pitches a gem. Ryan Braun steps up with the game tied late and delivers a monster home run.
And just like that, after a 4-1 victory over the Marlins in front of a towel-waving mob of 44,584, the Brewers are National League Central champions.
With their magic number down to two, the Brewers came to Miller Park with business on their mind. Sure, there was buzz around the city. Sure, they knew how tantalizingly close the title was. But there was work to be done.
"Once we clinch this thing, I will tell you how I feel," said manager Ron Roenicke, in his first year on the Brewers' bench said before the game. "Right now, I'm not thinking about it."
After the game, the even-keeled Roenicke showed his emotion – he'd given every player a hug and was red in the eyes when talking to reporters – but still managed to keep his Southern California cool, even as the chaos unfolded around him.
"I know the team always felt like we were going to play good ball," Roenicke said. "It didn't take long for us to turn that around."
Prince Fielder got things started early, belting a Chris Volstad fastball into the right-center field bullpen to stake Milwaukee to an early, 1-0 lead. After that, though, the Brewers' bats once again fell silent.
Volstead kept the Brewers at bay for the next four innings, leaving the game after the seventh with three strikeouts but kept his pitches low and got the Brewers to ground out time and time again.
Fortunately for Milwaukee, Gallardo was just as effective. The young right-hander struck out 11 – becoming the first player in franchise history to strike out 10 or more in three consecutive games – and allowed just five hits in 7.1 innings of work. Florida's only run came in the fourth, when Bryan Petersen's bloops single scored Gabby Sanchez to tie the game.
Braun, as he was in 2008, was the hero of the day. His three-run homer in the eighth put Milwaukee ahead for good. With the crowd already in a frenzy, the out-of-town scoreboard in left field flashed an update just moments later – Cubs 4, Cardinals 1 – after Alfonso Soriano hit an eighth-inning, three-run bomb of his own to bring the Brewers one step closer to clinching.
John Axford came in to close things out, picking up his 41st consecutive save and franchise-record 44th of the year and the waiting game began.
Then, 25 minutes later, it was official: Cubs win; Cardinals lose and the Brewers were champions again.
"This is fantastic, amazing," exclaimed outfielder Nyjer Morgan, experiencing the postseason for the first time in his career. "This is just what this group deserves. Words can't explain it."
The celebration ran late. At 11 p.m. – 90 minutes after the game ended – hundreds of fans remained at Miller Park while the players and their families and friends shook hands, hugged and, of course, doused each other with libations in front of the Brewers dugout.
"It's so cool for all of us as a team to be in this moment, to get a chance to celebrate and accomplish something that we set out to do," Braun said. "Hopefully, there's many more celebrations ahead but this is one that we'll all cherish, we'll all embrace and we'll all recognize how rare this is. It's not easy to do."
Their work isn't quite done yet. The Brewers still have five games left in the regular season, beginning Saturday night against the Marlins. The team is still trying to finish with the No. 2 seed in the National League and leads Arizona, which clinched the NL West Friday night, by one game.
"We're still playing for something," Roenicke said. "We need to play some good ball to try to win as many games as we can to make sure we have that home-field advantage, and also to carry this on into the playoffs."
