The Milwaukee Brewers are surging once again, winners of eight straight games and leading the NL Central by five games. The Brewers have been predominantly hot in the second half of the season, overtaking the rival Chicago Cubs and their former manager Craig Counsell. While Milwaukee avoided taking a big swing at the trade deadline, the moves they did make – like adding Quinn Priester and Andrew Vaughn – have paid off tremendously. The Cubs, meanwhile, are waiting for the same payout.
Counsell himself did finally acknowledge that the Brewers are a good baseball team. While Counsell will never admit it, watching his former team make the postseason two years in a row over Chicago would be rather embarrassing. Yes, Counsell understood he left a capable team behind, but he couldn't have expected this. The Cubs outspend the Brewers and have a solid organizational infrastructure. None of it has mattered, as Pat Murphy has replaced Counsell without batting an eye.
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What Cubs players have to say about the Brewers winning ways
While Counsell has played coy about Milwaukee's impressive stretch, his players have taken note. Clubhouse leaders like Kyle Tucker and Dansby Swanson were asked about the Brewers this week, and weren't afraid to praise their NL Central rivals. Tucker, for one, said that he does have a 'rough idea' as to where the Cubs sit in the standings.
“A rough idea,” Tucker admitted this week, per the Athletic. “I don’t know how many games back we are right now, it’s two or four or whatever. We got 50 games or whatever left. Just focus on today and move on to tomorrow and see where we are at the end of the year.”
Milwaukee started the season 0-4 and were three games under .500 through just over 50 games. Then, they started winning. The Brewers are 47-16 over their last 63 games, a stunning pace that even the best of teams cannot keep up with, including the Cubs.
“There’s times where you see it and you want to have some awareness in terms of where things are at,” Swanson said. “But what we can control is what we’re doing on a daily basis. In order to get to where we want to get to, you have to win games. So it’s not about what they’re doing. The more you spend time focusing on them, you’re taking energy from being where we need to be.”
Who has the edge in the NL Central down the stretch?
The good news for the Cubs is that they have an edge in remaining strength of schedule. While they face a five-game deficit, Chicago has the third-easiest remaining schedule in MLB. The Brewers, meanwhile, have the fifth-toughest, per Tankathon. Milwaukee's remaining opponents have a .514 winning percentage as of this writing, which could take some of the wind out of their sails as we get closer to September.
At least, that is what Counsell and the Cubs are hoping for to avoid the NL Wild Card round altogether. That may require a Brewers-like run from Chicago, despite some of their pitching staff woes.