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As I said at the top of this week's Power Rankings, the Milwaukee Brewers are making a mockery of the rest of baseball right now. It's silly. It's like someone playing a few levels of difficulty too low on a video game just to see if they can run the table and win every game. They are 28-4 since July 5 and 52-16 since May 24. They won 11 games in a row after that July 5 loss, but that isn't even their longest winning streak since that date.

The Brewers, thanks to a 13-game winning streak they extended Friday night in a comeback win over the Reds, now have the best record in baseball by seven games. Given not only that but also the major struggles every other serious contender have suffered this season -- most of them very recently -- one might think the Brewers' are the odds-on favorites to win the World Series. 

Except they aren't. 

The top five odds right now to win it all, via FanDuel: 

Now, the first thing to keep in mind here is that odds aren't predictions and are largely driven by betting markets. That is to say, the books believe the most bettors want to wager on the Dodgers to win the World Series with the Phillies second. Those are much larger markets and much higher-profile teams than the Brewers with multiple recent, deep playoff runs. 

There might also be a little of "we don't believe this can continue" in the minds of the general public. 

Is that true? 

Let's dive in on the Brewers roster and how it'll look for the playoffs. Can they advance to the NLCS for the first time since 2018? Can they make the Fall Classic for the first time since 1982? Can they win their first ever World Series? 

Let's run through each aspect of the team and examine. The short answer is I actually don't see a weakness right now. 

Offense

If you look at the Brewers' season-long offensive numbers, they appear to be a team with middling slugging percentage. The concern then would be that in the playoffs -- against some of the strongest pitching and defensive teams -- it is so much harder to string hits together. We've seen it before: teams that don't slug as much can be left behind. 

They are a different team than they were at the start of the season, though. What if we just look at the Brewers' offense since they got hot? They rank second in the majors in slugging percentage since May 24 behind the Blue Jays, who also got amazing around the same time, just not to the same extent as the Brewers.

Since that point in time where the Brewers morphed into the MLB version of the Terminator and Predator combined, Andrew Vaughn has hit .340 with a .630 slugging percentage (as of Wednesday). Isaac Collins looks like a star in the making, slashing .313/.409/.502. Brice Turang is a well above-average hitter. Sal Frelick is hitting .316 and has flashed power. If there's a concern about stars needing to carry the load in the playoffs and that Vaughn and/or Collins don't quite count yet, that's fine. Christian Yelich has hit .314/.383/.525 since May 24. Jackson Chourio will be back soon enough and we've seen plenty of him looking like a superstar already. William Contreras is an All-Star catcher and he's currently on a run where he's hit .390/.486/.746 with six homers and 17 RBI in the last 15 games.

Yes, the offense is absolutely strong enough to win it all.

Defense

The Brewers are a great defensive team, which shouldn't surprise anyone. They rank fourth in MLB in defensive efficiency (as of Wednesday), which is the percentage of balls put into play that are turned into outs. Using Statcast's Outs Above Average, the Brewers rank second. In Defensive Runs Saved, they are eighth and in Fielding Run Value, they rank fifth. They are above average in fielding percentage, too. 

We've seen small problems on defense balloon into a major collapse in the playoffs. See the Yankees in Game 5 of the World Series for Exhibit A. And it's always possible that happens with one of the best defensive teams in the league. It just isn't likely and shouldn't be a major concern here.

Baserunning

There's a baserunning component in WAR (BSR) that factors in taking the extra base, not making outs on the bases and, the most obvious one here, stolen bases. The Brewers have the best BSR score in the majors by a significant margin (14.4, compared to 9.0 from the Cubs in second place). They are second in the majors in stolen bases, a metric that isn't heavily reliant on one or two players who might slump at the wrong time. The Brewers have seven players in double digits in stolen bases this season with four of them having at least 15. Even the catcher, Contreras, has five steals.

Rotation

The Brewers have the second-best rotation ERA in all of baseball (3.36, trailing only the Rangers' 3.31). It's been a team effort. Four pitchers have made at least 17 starts and they all have ERAs between 2.90 (established ace Freddy Peralta) and 3.52 (rookie Chad Patrick). Rookie All-Star Jacob Misiorowski has a 2.70 ERA in seven starts and sure seems capable of throwing like an ace in a playoff situation. Veteran All-Star Brandon Woodruff returned from major surgery and has a 2.06 ERA in seven starts. He has a career 3.18 ERA in 28 ⅓ playoff innings. Rookie Logan Henderson has posted a 1.78 ERA in five starts. 

The book on the Brewers seems to be that they don't really have the star power to hang in the playoffs. 

Doesn't a rotation headed up by Peralta, Woodruff and Misioroswki seem pretty star-laden? The fourth spot is matchup-dependent, but deciding between veteran lefty José Quintana and 24-year-old Quinn Priester (who is 10-2 with a 2.93 ERA in his last 17 outings) is a nice problem for the front office and manager to have. 

Unless a bunch of things fall totally off the rails, the Brewers are going to have a stout playoff rotation.

Bullpen

The Brewers rank 14th in baseball in bullpen ERA, but, again, remember how the season started. They were embarrassed in their first four games and were below .500 for a while. Since May 24, Brewers relievers rank fifth in ERA. All-Star Trevor Megill looks like a top-shelf closer. Abner Uribe has a 1.97 ERA in 32 innings. Long reliever Aaron Ashby has worked 37 ⅓ innings in 22 outings with a 2.17 ERA. Let's also look above at the abundance of useful starting pitchers and realize the Brewers only need three or four starters in the playoffs. That means everyone else can work out of the bullpen, where their stuff will play up given the shorter outings. 

They have the makings of what could be a shutdown playoff bullpen. 

Manager

Pat Murphy is now 1-2 in his career in playoff games and 0-1 in playoff series. The Brewers had that Wild Card Series won, taking a 2-0 lead into the top of the ninth in Game 3, but the Mets got the Brewers' bullpen for four runs. Sometimes the managers have to wear criticism when this happens, but no manager in the world would've done anything differently than going to his closer. It isn't Murphy's fault at all here. 

He doesn't have any positive playoff experiences from which to draw, though. Still, I'm inclined to believe he's fully capable of winning the World Series as manager of this group this season. I see no reason to say otherwise.

Sustainability

And herein lies the only true argument against the Brewers. 

So many players appear to be playing over their heads right now. Even if they are emerging as stars, there will be plenty of people questioning the likes of Vaughn and Collins, not to mention believing in an upcoming backslide from players like Turang and Frelick. Bullpens are always volatile, so of course there's a chance things could start to fall off the rails there. Maybe injuries become an issue in the rotation. Yelich will be an injury risk the rest of his career. 

On a team level, I don't think even the Brewers would dispute the notion that there's no way they can keep up a pace of winning 27 of 31. That 51-16 record since May 24? Extrapolate that out to 162 games and that's a 123-win pace. 

Simply put: Can they keep playing like the best team in MLB history? 

Nah, they can't. 

Then again, they don't have to. They could go through a stretch where everyone regresses for a period of something like three weeks and then have everything fall back into place in October to win the World Series. 

My overarching take is that while there are obviously some unsustainable things going on here, the Brewers are underrated in the current World Series odds.