The Cubs are in the postseason.
Note there’s a period after that sentence, not an exclamation point. That’s partly because the Cubs do not yet know exactly who they’re going to face in the postseason, or where. It seems likely they’ll be facing the Padres in a wild-card series at Wrigley Field starting Tuesday, Sept. 30, but there are still some permutations that could happen over the season’s last 10 games that might change that matchup and location. So I’ll save a bit of excitement for whenever
that series is confirmed.
When the Cubs won Wednesday and clinched the postseason spot, it was said that this is their first postseason berth since 2020. Which is, of course, factually true. There was a season in 2020, albeit shortened to 60 games by the pandemic, and there were postseason games — but there were no fans in attendance and the Cubs went out meekly, losing two games in a row to the Marlins and scoring just one run total. So you’ll forgive me if I kind of yawn at that “postseason.”
Then there was the 2018 season, when the Cubs went down to the wire with the Brewers and lost a tiebreaker game for the division title. That forced them into the Wild Card Game against the Rockies, which turned into a dreary 13-inning loss. There was excitement for the team’s fourth straight postseason and then, poof, it was just gone.
Incidentally, that was MLB’s last-ever tiebreaker game, now that tiebreaker rules are in place. Had such rules been in effect in 2018, the Cubs would have been NL Central champions, as they won the season series from the Brewers 11-8 (before the tiebreaker, which was considered a regular-season game).
Sigh. I’m not lamenting the past, it is what it is, only saying that the Cubs’ last postseason that felt like a real postseason was eight years ago, in 2017, when they won a hard-fought division series against the Nationals, only to fall four games to one in the NLCS to the Dodgers. The Cubs pretty much put everything they had into that division series win and had nothing left for the NLCS. It’s also the last time the Cubs won a postseason game, so they’ll be looking to break an eight-year drought there.
Returning to this year, the 2025 Cubs have had their ups and downs, for sure. After taking two of three from the Red Sox just after the All-Star break, they were 59-39, 20 games over .500 and a game ahead of the Brewers in the NL Central. Then they went into an extended hitting funk and played under .500 for more than two months, going 17-19 from July 21 to Aug. 28, ending with the three-game sweep at the hands of the Giants.
Since then, though? The Cubs are 12-6 in their last 18 games, which is second only to the Phillies for the best record in the National League over that span. They’ve started to hit the way they did over the first three months of the year, and have done that without Kyle Tucker, who might be out for a while yet. The bullpen’s started to solidify again and the Cubs have the starter who’s been the league’s best for the last two months, Cade Horton. The team could be peaking at exactly the right time.
I’ll have much more to say about the Cubs’ postseason once the wild-card matchup is officially set, or… if they can somehow pull off a miracle and win the NL Central.
In the meantime, sure, celebrate the Cubs returning to the October tournament. Should be a fun ride.
