Naturally, the Cardinals and Brewers flip-flopped again in the NL Central standings, with the Cardinals getting beat by the Reds and the Brewers coming back late to beat the Diamondbacks.
But as they flip flop around, the Cubs have now won 7 of 8 in the second half, and have pushed their division lead for the first time to 3.0 games:
It’s not exactly a lot of breathing room, especially with a tough road trip coming up – out west to San Francisco, then back east to Milwaukee and St. Louis. The Cubs will have the benefit of off-days mixed into that trip, but it’ll still be a challenging trio of series. If the Cubs can come out of it having gone even 4-5, you’d have to feel pretty OK with that, and they’d probably still lead the division by a couple games at that point.
They’ll also have passed the Trade Deadline at that point, and the roster could be a little remade. Interesting, important weeks ahead.