Brewers Hit 81 Wins and Stretch NL Central Lead to Seven as Cubs Stumble
Milwaukee's 4-1 win over Atlanta on Saturday, paired with Chicago's third straight loss, pushed the Brewers' NL Central lead to its largest since late July with five weeks to play.
The NL Central race is starting to look less like a race. The Milwaukee Brewers beat the Braves 4-1 on Saturday to reach 81-49, and with the Chicago Cubs falling 5-4 in Seattle — their third straight defeat — Milwaukee's division lead now sits at seven games, its largest since July 26, according to Sports Illustrated.
Why it matters: with roughly five weeks left, the division is drifting out of Chicago's reach, and the real September question in the Central is shifting from who wins it to how the seeding shakes out.
Milwaukee's surge, Chicago's skid
The Brewers are 7-2 since being swept by San Diego in mid-August, a stretch that included taking three of four from the Dodgers and the first two games of the Atlanta series, per SI, with Jake Bauers homering in the win over the Braves. The Cubs' weekend went the other way — Seattle's Randy Arozarena ended Saturday's game with a two-run walk-off homer, per SI. Chicago still holds the NL's top wild-card spot at 74-56 on the Torch standings page, ahead of the Phillies (72-58) and Padres (70-60).
There is star power underneath the standings, too: FOX Sports notes Brewers right-hander Jacob Misiorowski has been an NL Cy Young frontrunner with 204 strikeouts, while Cubs outfielder Pete Crow-Armstrong has led MLB in WAR with 30-plus homers and 30-plus steals.
The AL, meanwhile, is chaos
The contrast across leagues is stark. The Rays (76-53) lead the Yankees by three in the AL East after Saturday's 3-2 loss in Baltimore, but the Astros top the AL West at exactly .500 (65-65), and the battle for the AL's final wild-card spot is being fought by teams below .500 — what FOX Sports calls a mess "in a way that will be fun these last two months."
Milwaukee and Atlanta wrap their series on Sunday evening — the full slate is on the Torch scoreboard.