Magical

At least for today the Brewers have a magic number , which is the number of Brewer wins and Cubs losses that will clinch the division title. The Brewers magic number is 12. The Brewers took the lead over the Cubs in the all-important loss column last night. The Cubs have one more win but more importantly one more loss than the Brewers.

The Brewers have two "games in hand", i.e. they've played two fewer games. The loss column is more important because you can't "un-lose" a game.

The bad news is that Ben Sheets stubbed his pinkie toe again...OK, his hamstring felt twingy or something. Sheets was pitching on three days rest because of his 50-pitch outing the time before, but pitching on short rest almost never works out. Wait for the injury news.

Claudio Vargas filled in smartly, the Brewers clubbed four more homers and romped.

Speaking of pitching on short rest, the Cubs Ted Lilly is going to try going on three days rest this evening. Pitchers today almost never pitch on three days rest, but managers don't like pitching their most marginal pitcher in big games, so they try and squeeze more innings out of the better pitchers. Zambrano pitched last night on short rest and got blown up by the Reds. We'll see but Lou Pinella could really be setting himself for second-guessing. He's avoiding Steve Trachsel, an admirable goal, but is Lilly going to repeat Zambrano's poor outing? Except I'm first-guessing him: It's a bad idea, Lou. Keep it up!