The Chicago Cubs defeated the Boston Red Sox Saturday night at Wrigley Field for the second straight day, and the win landed the team in an awesome spot.
That’s because the victory, a 6-0 triumph over Boston, was the Cubs’ 59th win of the season in their 98th game, and it gave them the best record in all of baseball by one-half game over the Detroit Tigers.
According to ESPN’s Jesse Rogers, the Cubs having baseball’s best record this late in the season has not occurred since the 2016 campaign, when they finished with a 103-58 record and won their first World Series championship in 108 seasons.
The Cubs — current owners of the best record in MLB this late in the season for the first time since the final day of 2016 — go for the sweep today against the Red Sox. All-star Garrett Crochet stands in their way. pic.twitter.com/l2ek0BY8LM
— Jesse Rogers (@JesseRogersESPN) July 20, 2025
Parallels to the 2016 season don’t stop there either. According to Baseball Reference’s Stathead tool, the Cubs’ 59 wins in 98 games are the most they’ve had in that timeframe since the 2016 season, when they were precisely 59-39 after 98 games, the exact record they sit at entering action on Sunday.
In all, the Cubs have won 59 or more games through their first 98 contests a total of four times during the divisional era, also achieving the feat in 1969 and 1977.
Even though they have baseball’s best record, they can hardly breathe easy. That’s because the Milwaukee Brewers have won their last nine games, and are still just one game behind the Cubs for first place in the National League Central. The Cubs have been in at least a tie for first place for nearly the entire season, having occupied the top spot since all the way back on April 4, the day of their home opener at Wrigley Field.
Fortunately for the Cubs, they’ll soon have the opportunity to take their fate into their own hands, as they’ll end the month of July with a three-game series against the Brewers in Milwaukee. A few weeks later, the Cubs will take on the Brewers in a five-game series at Wrigley Field, marking their final meetings of the regular season.