There was a time when this series loomed as extremely important for both these teams.
With the Brewers on an historic run, and the Cubs treading water, it’s still important — for the Cubs to keep up their wild-card race lead. Barring a Cubs miracle run and epic Brewers collapse (and wouldn’t that be nice?), the Brewers are going to win the NL Central. Beyond that, perhaps after this week the two teams will meet again in October.
For more on the Brewers, here’s Harrison Freuck, manager of our SB Nation
Brewers site Brew Crew Ball.
So here we are. It looked like the Brewers were no competition for the Cubs in the NL Central early in the season, with a big lead in the division for Chicago and the Cubs owning a +12 run differential in the first four games of the season series. Since roughly late May, however, the Brewers have completely flipped their season, gradually building what now stands as a nine-game lead in the division heading into Sunday’s play, and the two teams also have an even 4-4 head-to-head record with these five games to decide the tiebreaker.
While Milwaukee’s offense has sputtered at times this season, that hasn’t been an issue lately. Even with Jackson Chourio and Rhys Hoskins on the IL, the bats seem to be firing on all cylinders. Christian Yelich leads the way with 25 homers and 86 RBI, while William Contreras, Brice Turang, and Sal Frelick are all familiar names with big contributions as of late. Rookies Isaac Collins and Caleb Durbin have both been great, while Joey Ortiz has had a solid August after struggling for most of the year. Perhaps the biggest surprise is Andrew Vaughn, who was acquired from the White Sox for Aaron Civale back in June. Since debuting with the big-league squad in early July, he’s done just about everything, as he’s hitting .330/.395/.624 with nine homers, five doubles, and 35 RBI in 30 games.
On the mound, the Brewers have suffered a couple more injuries recently (Logan Henderson and DL Hall both went down in the last week), but the rotation is about as solid as it’s been all season, with Freddy Peralta, Brandon Woodruff, Jacob Misiorowski, Quinn Priester, and Jose Quintana. The bullpen has also been solid, with Trevor Megill closing down games and Abner Uribe, Nick Mears, and Jared Koenig bridging the gap. At this point in the year, there honestly isn’t much the Brewers are doing wrong.
This should be a fun series as the Cubs look to show they’re still contenders and the Brewers look to prove they aren’t pretenders. I’ll take Milwaukee to win the series 3-2.
Fun facts
The Cubs have hosted the Brewers in 142 previous series. This will be just the second consisting of five games.
The first was in 2001, when the Cubs won two games and lost three. They have played four games 33 times; three games, 99; two games, eight times, including earlier this season; and a single game, once.
The Cubs’ last five-game series was June 2-5, 2022, when they went 2-3 vs. the visiting Cardinals.
The Cubs are 116-108 against the Brewers at Wrigley Field. They split six games in 2023 and 2024, and two games earlier this year.
In all 451 games between the teams, the Cubs have outscored the Brewers by just six runs, 2,045-2,039.
(Courtesy BCB’s JohnW53)
Probable pitching matchups
Monday, Game 1: Cade Horton, RHP (7-3, 3.07 ERA, 1.176 WHIP, 3.74 FIP) vs. Freddy Peralta, RHP (14-5, 2.90 ERA, 1.120 WHIP, 3.74 FIP)
Monday, Game 2: TBD vs. TBD
Tuesday: Matthew Boyd, LHP (11-6, 2.46 ERA, 1.016 WHIP, 3.18 FIP) vs. Brandon Woodruff, RHP (4-0, 2.06 ERA, 0.737 WHIP, 3.62 FIP)
Wednesday: TBD vs. Jacob Misiorowski, RHP (4-1, 3.89 ERA, 1.125 WHIP, 3.29 FIP)
Thursday: TBD vs. Quinn Priester, RHP (11-2, 3.48 ERA, 1.242 WHIP, 4.32 FIP)
Well. This series is quite the TBD festival, but these are all the pitchers listed as of posting time. It’s expected that Jameson Taillon will be activated from the injured list to start one of the TBD games, possibly Game 2 of Monday’s doubleheader. If the Cubs stay in rotation order, Colin Rea could go Wednesday and Shōta Imanaga Thursday. As always, we await developments.
Times & TV channels
Monday, Game 1: 1:20 p.m. CT, Marquee Sports Network, MLB Network (outside the Cubs and Brewers market territories)
Monday, Game 2: 7:05 p.m. CT, Marquee Sports Network
Tuesday: 7:05 p.m. CT, Marquee Sports Network
Wednesday: 7:05 p.m. CT, Marquee Sports Network
Thursday: 1:20 p.m. CT, Marquee Sports Network, MLB Network (outside the Cubs and Brewers market territories)
Prediction
Well, at least the Cubs are facing all right-handed starters this series. In fact, that makes three series in a row facing only RH starters — the last left-handed starter the Cubs faced was Andrew Abbott of the Reds on Aug. 6 — and they won that game 6-1.
My Brew Crew Ball colleague Harrison Freuck says the Brewers will win three of five. I’m going to say the Cubs will take the series by the same margin.
Up next
The Cubs travel west for a nine-game road trip. It begins with a three-game series against the Los Angeles Angels at Anaheim Friday evening.
