Craig Counsell hands Brewers the NL Central in hilarious fashion: Best memes and tweets

Craig Counsell just learned the hard way that greener pastures might actually be the shade donned by the Oakland A's. After abandoning the Milwaukee Brewers this offseason for a lucrative and perceived higher-upside gig with the NL Central-rival Chicago Cubs, Counsell's team helped his former team lock up the division on Wednesday with a disastrous loss at Wrigley Field to the Athletics.

The loss itself to a team that, although they've been much better since the All-Star break, has been so downtrodden is bad in itself. But the manner it happened was even worse.

Despite falling behind 1-0 in the fourth inning, the Cubs responded in the fifth with a three-run explosion that gave them the lead, one that should've been enough for a team with the investment of Chicago to be able to hold onto. Instead, Drew Smyly coughed up that lead in the seventh inning, leaving it tied 3-3, before Nate Pearson failed to hold serve in the eighth, giving Oakland the two-run lead and eventually the 5-3 victory.

Now, the Brewers are NL Central champions, the Cubs aren't sniffing even a wild card berth, and Counsell is deservedly the butt of every joke among baseball fans, Brewers fans specifically.

Craig Counsell gets roasted after Cubs hand Brewers the NL Central

Fans in Milwaukee, joined by baseball fans at large, are deservedly piling on Counsell for losing to the lowly A's with his supposedly better team and situation than the Brewers, thus giving said Brewers the division crown.

As bad as all of those burns — particularly the ones about Counsell getting it done for the Brewers once again, which were *chef's kiss* — were, perhaps the most damning thing any Cubs or Brewers fan alike had to say was just comparing what the new manager in Chicago did to his predecessor, the much-maligned David Ross.

Not great!

Maybe things will improve for the Cubs moving forward. This team has talent, this team has a good manager given what Counsell did in Milwaukee previously, and this team should be willing to spend. But there's always a bit of poetic justice when it comes to baseball that has a way of working out.

It was unceremonious in the way that Craig Counsell left the Brewers, for a rival no less. So it's only fitting that the way his season effectively ended unceremoniously was also a gift for his former club.