It is difficult to wrap the human mind around the fact that, in the grand old year of 2026, the Milwaukee Brewers are really, truly good. Or maybe that is a personal problem, as someone generally disconnected from the ongoings of the NL Central. What happens over there? None of my business! The operating assumption is that the Milwaukee Brewers will scam the division with 90-or-so wins every year, reaping the benefits of the four other flailing, barely trying teams who share the ignominy of playing in that blighted division, and then will immediately turn around and lose in the National League Wild Card round, or Divisional Series.

Perhaps last year should have served as a legitimate indicator. The Brewers, after all, won 97 games, the most in either league. But the way the Brewers achieved those 97 wins was undeniably weird. There were (said to the tune of "Shots" by LMFAO) hits, hits, hits, hits, hits, hits and double-digit win streaks somehow chained to other win streaks and the swingiest of games, all of which gave the Brewers' record a faint tinge of eau de frauduleux. The Brewers squeaked out of the NLDS against their divisional rivals, the Chicago Cubs, before getting absolutely curbstomped by none other than the Los Angeles Dodgers—at their closest pass to their purported juggernaut form—in the NLCS.

But this year! This year it feels more real. Maybe it's because Pete Crow-Armstrong is popping off for the Cubs, so it feels like there's some real competition within the division, or at least like anyone else is taking it seriously.

Brice Turang is once again the best dang batter on the Brewers, which indicts either the Brewers' paltry offensive star-power or the public's attention to Brice Turang. Either way, it's generally OK: Where the Brewers have been greatest this year has been in their pitching.

Jacob Misiorowski has made a leap. Where before he was a novelty rookie with velocity that makes your eyes bug out like a cartoon wolf, now he is rapidly unseating Paul Skenes as the hardest-throwing, coolest young starter in baseball with velocity that makes your eyes bug out like a cartoon wolf. Misiorowski is now on course to win the NL Cy Young this year. If the Brewers just needed a dude—a true, real, bonafide dude—in order to cross the invisible boundary from "vague noise" to "worth taking seriously," Misiorowski is the coolest and most convincing of their candidates.

Also, I went to PNC Park (gorgeous!) for the first time recently, which made the concept of the NL Central, if not necessarily the Pittsburgh Pirates, feel more real. To me, anyway.

The Brewers are charting to hold the best record in baseball for the second year in a row. Even better than last year, they are currently on pace to hit the coveted 100-win mark. To help their quest and case, the Brewers spent the past weekend and change beating the Los Angeles Dodgers, about whom nobody can shut up and who thus are Milwaukee's de facto primary rivals, even though they don't have Brice Turang.

Over the course of the four-game series, the Brewers beat the Dodgers 5-4, then lost 3-1, won 4-1, and won 6-2. The pitching rotation made the Dodgers' offensive lineup, for all its abundant name recognition, look like a filthy bunch of slap hitters. Freddie Freeman? Famously living up to his craft. Shohei Ohtani? Maybe if he played for the cubs in the NL East, he'd have a clean shot at the NL MVP and not resemble a slap hitter. Andy Pages is batting third? The Brewers spit on a lineup like that. Jacob Misiorowski casually hit 104.2 mph on his fastball during his start on Saturday. Clearly Ohtani can't catch up to big-league heat.

With the series victory and no further games between the two teams, Milwaukee cinched a narrow but winning 4-3 record against the Dodgers this season, which will be helpful for punditry should they meet each other in the playoffs. Because it is baseball, the Brewers may as well have charted to go out in the NLDS by doing so. But in the interest of respecting probability and enjoying whatever empirical evidence there is, it's not a bad time to try out the concept of Milwaukee as a World Series favorite. At least this year, the Brewers have made it easy to believe.