I suspect it will be difficult for the Mets to win game one of this series simply due to three games and two plane flight between Milwaukee and Atlanta in the last two days. Meanwhile, the Brewers, having clinched the NL Central early, were able to put all their ducks in a row.

The Brewers might be the most surprising team to make the playoffs this season, given that they appeared to tear down a bit in the offseason. They lost two of their star pitchers, one to injury and one to a trade. They lost their star manager to the division rival the Cubs, and their star general manager to the team across the field, the Mets. I suspect there were a lot of people behind the scenes who did great work scouting and developing talent, and I suspect those people continued to pay off.

It didn’t hurt that Christian Yelich returned to near his all-star form, and that a very young Jackson Chourio matured in the middle of the season. The William Contreras deal continues to look great. They cobbled together a starting staff, and used a great bullpen to limit the damage. They cruised to a championship in what proved to be a weak division.

The Mets are another late bloomer team. They were 24-35 on June 2nd, and since then are 65-38, the best in the majors. Francisco Lindor led the team capping that with the two-run homer to put New York in the post season.

Offensively the teams are very close, the Brewers leading 4.80 runs per game to 4.75 runs per game for the Mets. Milwaukee does dominate with pitching, however. Their 3.96 runs allowed per game ranked second lowest in the NL, while the Mets come in at 4.29 runs per game, 8th.

Tuesday will test the resiliency of New York, but a likely Brewers win means they only need to split the final two games for a trip to Philadelphia. I like Milwaukee in this series.