The Brewers Are Building A Real Cushion In The NL Central, And The Cubs Should Panic
The Milwaukee Brewers keep winning, the Chicago Cubs keep losing games they should not lose, and the NL Central race is starting to feel like it might be over before the calendar flips to October.
Milwaukee has quietly become one of the most complete teams in the National League. Their pitching staff has been the best in baseball for two-plus months, their offense finally has the top-to-bottom depth they lacked earlier in the year, and Pat Murphy has done another masterful job of managing rest and matchups.
The Brewers do not have superstars. They have twelve above-average players and a bullpen that has been a nightmare for opposing lineups. That is a formula that has worked for them for years, and this version might be the best one yet.
The Cubs, meanwhile, are underachieving in ways that are hard to explain. Their rotation was supposed to carry them. Instead, injuries have thinned it out. Their offense has flashes but cannot string together consistent nights against quality pitching. And their bullpen just cost them a winnable game against Milwaukee earlier this week, complete with the Trent Thornton dugout meltdown that went viral.
Craig Counsell is watching his old team pull away from his current one, and there is a real irony there that Chicago fans do not want to hear about.
My honest assessment: the Cubs are still going to make the playoffs as a wild card. Their run differential says they are better than their record, and September is a good time to catch fire against weaker opponents. But catching Milwaukee is now a five-game gap that requires either a Brewers collapse or a Cubs winning streak of eight or nine, and neither is particularly likely.
Milwaukee’s playoff positioning is more interesting than most people realize. If they hold the NL Central and end up with the second or third seed, they get a bye through the wild card round, which historically boosts pitching staffs like theirs enormously. Fresh Freddy Peralta and Corbin Burnes-style starters carry small-sample series better than anyone.
The Cubs’ path is harder. A wild card series against a rested Dodgers or Braves team is not a promising draw, and Chicago has not shown the ability to consistently score against elite pitching this year.
What I would watch over the next three weeks is the Brewers’ starting pitching health. That is the one thing that could crack this open. If Milwaukee loses a starter to injury, the Cubs suddenly have a chance to close the gap in a series or two. Otherwise, the Brewers’ formula travels well into October.
The bigger question is whether the Cubs make offseason changes based on this outcome. Their payroll has climbed. Their expectations were high. Falling short of a division title and getting bounced early in the wild card round would put real pressure on the front office to shake things up this winter.
Milwaukee looks primed for another October run. Chicago looks like a team searching for answers. The NL Central race is over unless something dramatic happens, and dramatic is not really what the Brewers do.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
