Baseball's Best Record Heads West: Brewers Open a Seven-Game California Test
At 74-44, Milwaukee takes MLB's best record into three games in San Diego and a four-game NLCS rematch at Dodger Stadium.
The Milwaukee Brewers own baseball's best record at 74-44, and the next week will tell us plenty about how sturdy it is. After edging Minnesota 4-3 on Sunday, the Crew opens a three-game set in San Diego tonight, then moves up the coast for four at Dodger Stadium from Thursday - a rematch of the 2025 NLCS, which, as MLB.com notes, the Dodgers swept on their way to the World Series title.
The chase behind them
Milwaukee's cushion in the NL Central is real but not safe: the Cubs sit 5½ back at 69-50 and arrive in form, having blown out the Royals 10-2 on Sunday to take the series in Kansas City - and they currently hold the top NL wild card. Behind Chicago, the wild-card race is a genuine pileup - the Phillies and D-backs are tied at 63-56 for the second spot, with the Padres at 62-57 one game back and the Marlins still within range at 60-59. Every one of Milwaukee's seven games this week comes against a team living inside that scramble or above it.
The Dodgers' wobble
Los Angeles still leads the NL West at 70-48, but Arizona just took the weekend series in Phoenix, closing it out 4-2 on Sunday behind Eduardo Rodriguez, who struck out nine in a game the Washington Post described as another stumble for a struggling Dodgers side. The D-backs are 7½ out in the division, so their route runs through the wild card - which makes their tie with Philadelphia worth watching daily.
Arms race
The pitching subplots are rich. Milwaukee's Jacob Misiorowski is the first pitcher to reach 200 strikeouts this season, per MLB.com, while the Dodgers can counter with Tarik Skubal, the trade-deadline addition MLB.com flags as a likely headliner for the weekend series. If those two meet at Chavez Ravine, it is the pitching matchup of the week in either league.
First pitch in San Diego is tonight at 6:40 p.m. PT.