MILWAUKEE — The Chicago Cubs and Milwaukee Brewers have played 456 games against each other, but never once has these two teams faced off in the MLB playoffs.

As rivals in the NL Central, these two teams play more than a dozen games against each other every season.

Saturday will usher in a new chapter in the rivalry.

“The regular season matchups are awesome,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said. “It’s a lot of fun. A lot of times, there’s extra energy from fans and there’s fans from both teams in the building. That’s always made it a lot of fun.”

Counsell knows all about this rivalry. He spent six seasons in Milwaukee as a player and then took a job in the Brewers front office before managing the club for nine years from 2015-23.

The Cubs then pried him away from the Brewers and made him the highest manager in the game.

“The game was never too fast for him … great example of why he’s a great manager.”

Nico Hoerner on Craig Counsell’s leadership during the Wild Card Series. pic.twitter.com/ZgoOp4InLy

— Marquee Sports Network (@WatchMarquee) October 3, 2025

The Brewers pivoted and made Counsell’s longtime bench coach (and his former college coach) Pat Murphy the new manager.

Murphy guided his Brewers to the NL Central title in each of the last two years. He won the NL Manager of the Year Award in 2024 and looks primed to repeat this season.

As the Cubs and Brewers get set for a best-of-five NLDS, we ran down the top storylines of the series:

Rotation

Game 1: LHP Matthew Boyd vs. RHP Freddy Peralta

Boyd gets the call to open the NLDS after he also started Game 1 of the NL Wild Card Series against the San Diego Padres.

He will be working on short rest, though he threw just 58 pitches on Tuesday.

Peralta will undoubtedly receive some Cy Young votes after enjoying the best season of his career. He led the league with 17 wins while posting a 5.5 WAR, 2.70 ERA, 1.08 WHIP and struck out 204 batters in 176.2 innings.

Boyd made only two starts against the Brewers in the regular season and struggled to the tune of a 7.84 ERA and 1.94 WHIP in 10.1 innings.

Peralta made four starts against the Cubs in 2025, going 3-1 with a 3.43 ERA and 1.05 WHIP.

Neither team has announced their starter for Game 2. The schedule is a bit wonky, as they have a day off on Sunday before resuming in Milwaukee Monday night.

The off-day affords both teams opportunities to reset their bullpen, so we could see a high volume of relievers in Game 1 as each manager aggressively tries to capture the first game of the series.

The Brewers could start right-hander Quinn Priester or lefty — and former Cub — Jose Quintana in Game 2.

The Cubs can choose from a variety of options, including Shota Imanaga, Colin Rea, Javier Assad or an opener. They could also opt to start Jameson Taillon on short rest, as he threw just 60 pitches in four innings Thursday against the Padres.

Tale of the tape

Here is how the two teams match up statistically (MLB ranks):

Wins
Brewers – 97 (1st)
Cubs – 92 (6th)

Run differential
Brewers: +172 (1st)
Cubs: +144 (3rd)

Runs scored
Brewers – 806 (3rd)
Cubs – 793 (5th)

AVG
Brewers – .258 (3rd)
Cubs – .249 (13th)

OPS
Brewers – .736 (11th)
Cubs – .751 (7th)

Homers
Brewers – 166 (22nd)
Cubs – 223 (6th)

Stolen bases
Brewers – 164 (2nd)
Cubs – 161 (3rd)

ERA
Brewers – 3.58 (2nd)
Cubs – 3.79 (9th)

WHIP
Brewers – 1.23 (9th)
Cubs – 1.18 (2nd)

A sense of familiarity

The unique aspect of this series — beyond the fact these two teams have never squared off in the postseason — is how well they know each other.

The Cubs and Brewers played each other 13 times in the regular season, with the Cubs winning seven of those games.

That’s quite a difference from what the Cubs just experienced, when they played the Padres in the wild-card round. The Cubs only played the Padres six times in 2025 — and they finished the season series with their NL West counterparts in mid-April.

So when the Cubs and Padres met in the wild-card round at Wrigley Field this past week, it was the first time they’d seen each other in nearly six months.

The Cubs and Brewers, however, are intimately familiar with each other’s games — and that goes well beyond the managers who have been close friends for decades.

“It’s interesting,” Cubs second baseman Nico Hoerner said. “I mean, teams are always changing. It was unique against the Padres, especially with them adding some different pitchers. But even facing one pitcher one week to the next can feel different, as we’ve seen at times this year.

“So yeah, there’ll be some guys I’ve had 20-plus at-bats against, but they’re always evolving, too.”

Where does the pressure lie?

The Cubs and Brewers entered 2025 in different places with varying levels of external expectations.

The Brewers traded away dynamic closer Devin Williams and did not make headlines in augmenting their roster. Most of their other moves flew under the radar around the league.

Meanwhile, the Cubs traded for star Kyle Tucker and added a bunch of other higher-profile names like Boyd, Ryan Pressly and Justin Turner.

The Cubs almost always have a higher payroll as a major market team, while the Brewers play in the smallest market in the league and typically have a corresponding payroll.

All that adds up to the fact that the expectations are always higher on the Cubs. Many pundits predicted the Cubs would win the NL Central, yet the Brewers ended up with the best record in the league and a third straight division crown.

The Brewers have been able to play freely in the regular season, knowing that they are the underdogs.

But that script flips now in the postseason.

The Brewers are the No. 1 seed and hold homefield advantage in this series. They are certainly not the underdogs any longer.

So has the pressure flipped too? Are the Brewers now feeling more pressure in this series while the Cubs get to play the underdog role?

“You could make the narrative however you want as far as pressure goes,” Hoerner said. “I think every player at this point is feeling pressure, excitement, however you want to phrase it.

“Just an opportunity at the end of the day, and it’s exciting to play a team that you’ve been compared to and been alongside for a while. Playoffs is absolutely the best way to go about that.”