MILWAUKEE — Long before Prince Fielder crushed a walk-off home run that has a chance to become legend in Milwaukee, Dale Sveum tried Tuesday to put a positive spin on the rise and fall of the Brewers.

Despite plenty of evidence to the contrary — like, say, the Brewers' 5-15 record in the first three weeks of September that wiped out five months of hard work — the Brewers' interim manager remained upbeat as his team entered the final week of the season.

"When we started spring training, if we said we were going to be one game out of a playoff berth with six games left, I think everybody in the clubhouse would say, 'Yeah, I'd take it,' " Sveum said. "We took a little different route getting to this point, but the fact of the matter is we're here and we've got things lined up."

Everything, that is, except the starting rotation. Entering Tuesday night's game against Pittsburgh at Miller Park, the Brewers had hitters emerging from slumps, a bullpen getting itself together and a jolt of energy after the New York Mets lost Monday to let them climb within a game of the lead in the National League wild card race.

What the Brewers didn't have, however, was any clue who would start some of the biggest games in franchise history.

Dave Bush did his job before Fielder did his in the 7-5 victory over the Pirates on Tuesday and CC Sabathia will start tonight on three day's rest, but they are the only appealing options left in a rotation that is running on empty.

Sveum admitted he would be "winging it" with his rotation starting Thursday.

Sveum has run out of patience with Jeff Suppan and Manny Parra, which put names like Ben Sheets, Yovani Gallardo, Seth McClung and Mark DiFelice into the discussion.

Of course, Sheets might not be healthy enough, Gallardo hasn't thrown since his knee surgery in May and, with only must-win games from here on out, McClung and DiFelice could be needed in relief at any time.

It would be understandable if Sveum was uneasy about not having his rotation set entering the final weekend of the season.

However, he's not worried about anything, not even the criticism he's likely to get for pitching Sabathia, a free-agent-to-be, on short rest again.

"It would be nice to sit back and have (a set rotation), but obviously we don't," he said. "So you deal with it the best you can. You talk to your staff, you talk to the pitchers and, whether people think it's right or wrong, you still do whatever you can with your personnel to put the best people out there that are going to win that game, that day."

The irony of the rotation's current state of disarray is that it was starting pitching that carried Milwaukee to a four-game lead in the wild-card race on Sept. 1. But if the Brewers' jumbled rotation doesn't offer much hope, at least the competition does.

The Mets, like the Brewers, have suffered late-season collapses in each of the last two years. And the Mets, like the Brewers, have one potentially fatal flaw — their bullpen.

Indeed, the Brewers' last remaining hope of making up a game on New York is that their starters pitch better than the Mets' relievers over the next five days.

Contact Tom Oates at toates@madison.com or 608-252-6172.