CHICAGO | Their post-game victory meal was tasty, and when Lou Piniella began speaking on the closed-circuit TV in the cramped Milwaukee Brewers clubhouse at Wrigley Field, the atmosphere was positively delicious after a second straight win over the Cubs.

As Piniella offered up his mea culpa Wednesday for his Cubs' stumblebum ways, the Milwaukee Brewers' wise guys began mimicking the manager's Tampa accent.

Prince Fielder, looking up from a video screen he was reviewing, had the verbal Piniella down pat.

"He does that all the time," a Brewers official said. Another Piniella impressionist spoke up from the meal table. More mockery came when Piniella announced Alfonso Soriano displaced Ryan Theriot as the leadoff hitter.

The Brewers' bullpen constantly regurgitated sure victories last season. They surrendered an 8 1/2-game June lead to the Cubs over the next two months. And the Cubs were 9-6 against them last year, hardly struggling at all to win.

Those negatives aren't enough to cow the Brewers, who have gained little respect from pennant prognosticators. A fashionable choice last year to win the National League Central, the Brewers have been downgraded amid a preseason land rush to anoint the Cubs repeat champs, if not World Series entrants.

Maybe that's the way the Brewers like it. If they had a solid top-to-bottom pitching staff, they'd get more votes. They have just about the best collection of young everyday players in the majors. The Cubs would love to have homegrown hitters the caliber of Fielder, Ryan Braun, Corey Hart, Bill Hall, J.J. Hardy and Rickie Weeks.

Two games going either way are hardly a trend. But the Brewers surely gained at least a small measure of confidence coming into Wrigley Field to take a pair of games while getting excellent performances from starters Ben Sheets and Jeff Suppan. Their only dark spot was Eric Gagne's ninth-inning meltdown, thanks to Kosuke Fukudome, on Monday.

They know how to say politically correct stuff about confidence that won't end up as bulletin-board fodder.

"Yes -- I'm not going to say no," manager Ned Yost said. "It's just two days and we played very, very well."

Catcher Jason Kendall was on duty behind the plate in Chicago when the Cubs overcame the Brewers' first-place edge last season.

"You want to win every game, absolutely," he said. "It's a good baseball team over there and we're a good baseball team."

The Cubs and Brewers are now the top NL Central rivals, now that an inept Cardinals ownership has dulled St. Louis. In that heated atmosphere, the Brewers have to stock up on wins against the Cubs now. The goofy schedule has them playing in Wrigley Field again at month's end, and not playing the Cubs after that till the end of July in Milwaukee.

The division race won't be a turkey shoot as some have proclaimed. Piniella must brace for another gut-wrenching season.

George Castle's "Diamond Gems" baseball show airs at 3 p.m. Saturdays on WIMS-AM (1420). This column solely represents the writer's opinion. Reach him at DGemsNet@aol.com.