People have taken a good understanding of probability and misapplied it. The Brewers' 8 game-streak doesn't tell us much about the quality of the team, because of sample-sizes. That's certainly true. But their underlying ability level is irrelevant. What matters is the results in this season, not the theoretical results of a million Monte Carlo simulation-seasons. And an eight-game streak in THIS season, lucky or not, has a profound influence on their playoff odds and by extension, ours. Losing the number of games in the standings that we have over the last few games is a serious matter. It can't just be shrugged off, because it does seriously change our playoff odds. We are almost sure, at this point, that we are one of the two best teams in the NL. Certainly one of the three best. But being one of the three best does not guarantee that you won't lose 2 games on the Brewers and 4+ games on someone else over two months. And a month ago, this team had every reason to believe it was virtually guaranteed to be in. Who would challenge us for the Wild Card, assuming the Cards do fade away and Milwaukee can't be beat? 85% is still a pretty darn good number. What were our chances last year at this time? And a month ago the Brewers didn't have CC. Nothing is guaranteed with half of a season left. Relax and don't panic. Again, our starters have all been good since the break and the offense is showing signs of snapping out of it.