Scott Venci column: Milwaukee Brewers will get it right by season's end - Green Bay Press Gazette

MILWAUKEE â€" The St. Louis Cardinals really know how to spoil a party at Miller Park.

Maybe they won’t be as unlikable this season for Milwaukee Brewers fans now that Albert Pujols relocated to California and manager Tony La Russa to a retirement home.

But for one day, there were far too many similarities between the last time the Cardinals walked out of here and when they walked back in this time.

Yovani Gallardo got the opening-day nod for the Brewers and did his best to make everyone forget the Shaun Marcum disaster in Game 6 of the NLCS last season, when the Cardinals scored four runs in the first on their way to an improbable World Series title.

This time, St. Louis hit four home runs and scored six runs off Gallardo before chasing him after 3 2/3 innings in the Brewers’ 11-5 loss.

There still were plenty of positives to take from this game, the biggest being that there are 161 more of these things left to get it right.

And, yes, the Brewers will get it right a lot more this season than they don’t in what should be a competitive Central Division.

The Cincinnati Reds have gotten better, and even if the Cardinals haven’t, they demand a certain amount of respect for being the defending champion.

Milwaukee has question marks like most teams, notably the large void left by Prince Fielder at first base and the presence he commanded in the middle of the lineup.

So what?

They return the same five starting pitchers from a team that won 96 games, have what should be a lockdown late-inning bullpen with setup man Francisco Rodriguez and closer John Axford, and they put out a lineup against the Cardinals that included NL MVP Ryan Braun for the first game rather than the 50th.

The Brewers should be considered the favorite to win their division. They have two more chances, thanks to the addition of a second wild card, to reach the postseason. One way or another, they’ll likely find a way to get in.

Milwaukee went all-in last season after trading part of its future for Marcum and fellow pitcher Zack Greinke and knowing it likely would lose Fielder to free agency.

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While Fielder signed with the Detroit Tigers, the core of this team hasn’t gone anywhere. They still are as all-in this season as 2011, and they are prepared to increase a record-high payroll to add a few parts come midseason.

“You are anxious to see what is going to happen this year,” Brewers manager Ron Roenicke said. “It’s always an unknown. You can feel great about your team and it doesn’t work out, and vice-versa. You can be picked to finish last in your division, and all of a sudden, you are right there at the end of the year.

“That unknown is always an exciting time. We are really comfortable in what this team has a chance to do this year.”

The Brewers are in a different place since owner Mark Attanasio bought the team for $223 million in 2005. There now are real expectations. Real thoughts of competing for, and winning, championships.

They have gone from a payroll of $27 million in 2004 to one that’s just more than $97 million to open this season.

Attanasio realizes his team has become a mid-market team instead of a small market one, and although the Brewers’ TV contract with Fox is not as much as it should be and still is locked in for much of the next decade, the team is drawing 3 million fans and doing its best to find ways to earn additional revenue. They had 50 sponsors during Attanasio’s early years. They have around 100 now.

Whether they can sustain a payroll in the three digits remains to be seen. Attanasio used to get questioned about whether he could raise it to $40 million. The questions remain, but the dollar amount has just gone way up.

“We will never be a large market,” Attanasio said.

He followed with something that a decade ago would have been met with laughter and at best a nod of approval from Bob Uecker.

“Milwaukee is a great destination to play baseball,” Attanasio said. “Back when we signed Jeff Suppan (in 2007), at that point one of the things I was trying to do was just get on the board with a free agent. We would call agents and they would basically say, ‘We will get back to you.’ That was their way of saying they weren’t interested.

“Now, the calls are coming inbound to us from players and their agents. Both from players outside the organization and here. Players generally are interested in staying. That feels good.”

The only thing that might feel better is beating the Cardinals again.