On May 24, the Brewers lost 2-1 to the Pittsburgh Pirates and dropped to 25-28, 6.5 games behind the division-leading Cubs. A glance at their schedule was not for the faint of heart: the team’s next eight series were all against teams who entered the season with legitimate postseason aspirations, including the team with the best record in baseball at the time (the Philadelphia Phillies) and their two NL Central rivals, the Chicago Cubs and St. Louis Cardinals. It felt like the next four weeks would essentially determine the course of the Brewers’ season, and it certainly felt like it was possible that they would reach the end of June as trade deadline sellers.

That run got off to a good start with a sweep of the Red Sox, who entered a swoon right around the time they came to Milwaukee. Not to be a guy who quotes himself, but in my write-up of the final game of that series, I wrote this: “[the Brewers] start a series in Philadelphia on Friday, the start of a pretty brutal stretch of games… We’ll learn a lot about this team over the next three weeks, but for now, the feelings around the team are as good as they’ve been since early in the season.”

We did learn a lot about the Brewers in that stretch. They passed every test put before them.

Since that loss to the Pirates on May 24, the Brewers are 22-9. They swept the Red Sox and Phillies, won two of three in Cincinnati, had a hiccup when they lost back-to-back 1-2 series to the Padres and Braves, then won three of four against St. Louis, split a pair with the Cubs, and swept the Twins to wrap up that aforementioned stretch of brutal games. They capped off the month by winning four of six from the Pirates and Rockies.

In that time, which was — on paper — the hardest stretch of the season, the Brewers made up four-and-a-half games on the Cubs in the NL Central and leapt over the Braves, Reds, Diamondbacks, Cardinals, and Giants in the National League standings. They’re now in the second wild card position, half a game behind the suddenly struggling Mets (who they play this week) for the top wild card spot.

If you were to point to one big change, it’s probably that Christian Yelich remembered how to hit. At the end of play on May 21, he was hitting .184/.276/.324 with seven home runs in 48 games. In 31 games since, he’s raised his batting average by 78 points, his OBP by 61 points, and his slugging by 133 points, and he’s hit nine homers.

Yelich finding his offense seemed to inspire the offense in others. In June, the following players posted these OPS marks:

Isaac Collins: .919
Brice Turang: .831
Caleb Durbin: .795
Joey Ortiz: .748
Sal Frelick: .746

Finding steady production from Collins, Durbin, and Ortiz was massive for an offense that too often featured four straight guys who felt like guaranteed outs in the first four months of the season. Frelick was moved to the leadoff spot on June 12, and since then, he’s hitting over .350. Turang, after a rough month of May, is back to steady production and has raised his batting average by 20 points since the beginning of the month.

The other big change was, of course, the addition of Jacob Misiorowski, who has been more than anyone could have hoped through three major league starts. He’ll have a bad game eventually, and he’s probably going to bump into an innings limit at some point this year, but his call-up seems to have energized the pitching staff and the fan base. Aaron Ashby and DL Hall are back, too, both pitching well and settling some of the roles in the bullpen. Brandon Woodruff’s impending return could act as another catalyst.

We’ll see what happens at the trade deadline, but don’t expect this team to sell now. They’re firmly in position to make another postseason run, and they’ve closed the gap with the Cubs — who are quietly backsliding a bit after a tremendous start — to the point that there’s no reason for the Brewers to think they can’t win another division title.

The Brewers were facing a really difficult stretch of games through the first three months of June, and through the third week of May, they quite frankly didn’t like a team that was up to the task this season. But they seem to have proven their doubters wrong yet again. It was a fun month of baseball.