In this week's episode of The Wisconsin Sportscast, Lucas and Oates are taking in a change of scenery at the Greenbush Bar! During this live show at our wonderful sponsor, it’s all about success for the Brewers, the Packers, and the Badgers. 

Recording on Tuesday evening before the second Brewers/Cubs game of the day, Milwaukee is no longer in their historic winning streak but that doesn’t mean they aren’t playing well. Maybe too well, says some pundits, who fear that they’re peaking too early and will fall apart in the offseason. Now, it’s a little too early to be talking about magic numbers, but Oates isn’t concerned. Teams have stretches of good and bad play, and if you can get on a hot streak you take it when you can. Nobody was expecting them to continue their lossless streak forever. But now with Jackson Chourio and Rhys Hoskins about to come back from injury, Lucas and Oates think they’re only going to get hotter. They play baseball the way it used to be played: very fast and with a lot of manufactured runs. Their offense is turning on in a major way, and they excel at putting the ball in play. Even when they don’t hit, they’re also excelling at taking a lot of pitches and wearing down a pitcher. 

What would be success for the Brewers? Oates says an appearance at the World Series is what should be expected. Like a lot of Wisconsin sports teams, they’ve been able to get to the playoffs, but then fall apart. They need to make it all the way to the end this year, whether they win or not.

Turning to the Packers now, Jordan Love is back on the field and throwing passes after his thumb surgery. What would a successful season for Green Bay look like? Some sort of playoff success, Oates says. They too have been able to reliably get into the playoffs, but they always seem to fall apart. They’ve had good teams with great quarterbacks, but they just haven’t been able to go that extra step. It’ll be a big year for both Love and Matt LaFleur as they both try to prove that they deserve to be there.

Finally, what would success look like for the Badgers football team? Well, we can’t really expect them to have playoff success like the Packers or Brewers. But they need to make it to a bowl game this year. If they can do that and end up with a 6-6 record, that should be looked at positively. It should be a rebuild year for Madison this year, hopefully one without an air raide offense…

The Wisconsin Sportscast with Lucas & Oates is a Cap Times podcast produced by Nate Wegehaupt. Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.