Brewers Just Survived a Ridiculous Gauntlet of Consecutive Games to Tie for Wild Card Lead

The talk of the National League Wild Card race has been the collapse of the Chicago Cubs, but what shouldn't be lost on anybody is just how good the Milwaukee Brewers have been over the past few weeks.

In the face of a grueling stretch of 18 games in 18 days, the Brew Crew went an astounding 15-3, catapulting themselves into a tie with the Washington Nationals for the top NL Wild Card spot.

The Brewers literally went from seven games back of the Nationals and five games behind the Cubs for the final playoff spot to tying the Nats and holding a comfortable 3.5-game lead over their division rivals from the Windy City.

They also took down some impressive opponents during that stretch. The Brewers took three of four against the Cubs and two of three against the St. Louis Cardinals, both of whom they could possibly face in the playoffs.

And if this stretch wasn't impressive enough, they've managed to win a handful of these games without NL MVP candidate Christian Yelich, who's out for the season with a knee injury.

It's truly astounding that the Brewers have been able to reel of such an impressive stretch of baseball, especially with no rest. It's a testament to their cohesiveness as a unit and depth as a team.

They've gotten hot at exactly the right time, and this improbable run may be the deciding factor that gets them over the hump and into the postseason.