On September 2nd, 2018 the Chicago Cubs beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 8-1, behind Jon Lester’s six shutout innings. That same day, in St. Louis, the Cardinals fell 6-4 to the Cincinnati Reds, with Eugenio Suárez’s tenth-inning home run the decisive blow. On the 3rd, the Cubs would fall to the Brewers, but when everyone went to bed on September 2nd, the Cubs had a five-game lead in the National League Central Division.
Following last night’s victory in Cleveland, the Cubs once again have a five-game lead in the Central. It’s a strange lead—they’re tied with St. Louis in the loss column, despite having played ten more games—but it’s a five-game lead nonetheless, and in mid-August, that’s significant.
Of course, the 2018 five-game lead didn’t hold. The Brewers closed the gap by exactly five games, then won the tiebreaker game, then gave the Dodgers a charge in the NLCS while the Cubs watched from home, having lost to the Rockies in an agonizing Wild Card Game. It was a comeback by the Brewers. It was also a collapse by the Cubs.
Will this year be different? Time will tell. But for the time being, it’s better to be up five games than to be trailing or to be up by fewer than five, and aside from the bullpen, which is last in the MLB in FIP, the tools are there to hold the lead. The rotation’s got the second-best FIP in the MLB, and the second-most fWAR to go with it. The position players are third in the MLB in fWAR, and fourth in wRC+. Better still, only other NL Central team is in the top 20 in wRC+ (the Reds, who come in at 20th), and the Cubs’ overall FIP isn’t far off those of the Reds and small-sample-size Cardinals.
The Brewers are especially limping, coming off a 12-2 thrashing by the Twins while aspiring face-of-baseball Christian Yelich has been a perfectly league-average hitter over the season’s first quarter-plus. But Luis Urías is back from a Covid-19 diagnosis, and the Milwaukee bullpen is still an exclamation point, rather than the thumbs-down emoji that’s currently answering the question mark that was the bullpen of the Cubs.
There’s an opportunity here for the Cubs to not quite bury the Brewers, but set them seven and a half games back by winning the series. Even a split would keep Milwaukee at arm’s length for the division crown. A series loss, though, while not disastrous, would certainly change the tone. 2018 showed that five-game leads aren’t safe in early September. Early September’s still a few weeks away.
