The Milwaukee Brewers are on an absolutely unreal run.

After a win Tuesday, they officially locked up the best 60-game stretch in franchise history, going 44-16 over that time.

Oh yeah, and then they went out and won again on Wednesday.

“Yeah, they’re playing well,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said this week.

The team that has won three straight NL Central titles (and four of the last five) is once again leading the division as we head into mid-August.

As a result of this recent run, the Brewers have opened up a four-game lead over the Cubs in the NL Central … despite the fact that the Cubs have the second-best record in the NL and third-best record in all of baseball.

As recently as June 18, the Cubs had a 6.5-game lead over the Brewers in the division.

Things have flipped quickly, however. Part of it is the Brewers’ insane hot stretch.

The other part is that the Cubs have gone a little cold.

Since June 6, the Cubs are 27-25 while Milwaukee has gone 36-15.

And over the last month (since July 7), the Cubs are only a .500 team (12-12) while the Brewers have an unreal 20-4 record.

But can the Brewers keep this pace going? Especially now with two of their best players — center fielder Jackson Chourio and starting pitcher Jacob Misiorowski — on the IL?

“I don’t spend much time thinking about that,” Counsell said of his former team. “We have five more games where we can control their outcomes — time spent worrying on them, other than that, is not helpful.”

That’s the right approach, of course.

With seven-and-a-half weeks left in the season, the Cubs have to focus on getting themselves right and winning games at a higher clip than they have over the last two months.

“For media, probably, you see the games back and so that creates a narrative,” Cubs left fielder Ian Happ said. “But we have to go play our brand of baseball, and we have to be focused on ourselves. Can’t be thinking about anything else.”

The Cubs and Brewers face off five times in four days at Wrigley Field (including a doubleheader) from Aug. 18-21.

That series could very well decide the fate of the NL Central.

August 7 is too early to scoreboard-watch every day, but it’s also a very human thing to do for fans, as well as for players.

That’s what happens when a team plays .738 baseball over a two-month stretch. To put it in perspective, if the Brewers won at a 73.8% clip over a full 162-game season, they would end up with 119 wins. No MLB team has ever won more than 116 games in a season.

While that may seem unsustainable, it’s not a guarantee the Brewers fall back to Earth, either. Their roster may not be filled with household names, but these players are producing, like White Sox castoff Andrew Vaughn:

Andrew Vaughn, with another HR and 2 RBI tonight, now has 28 RBI in the 22 games since joining the sizzling Brewers.
That’s a 206-RBI pace over a 162-game season.

— Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) August 7, 2025

And Milwaukee has an elite pitching staff that sports the fourth-best ERA in baseball this season (3.62) and the best ERA (3.20) since June 1.

And the Cubs know they can’t press to try to make up ground all at once.

“It’s a long season,” pitcher Shota Imanaga said through interpreter Edwin Stanberry. “At times, there are going to be a couple games out, but I think you really can’t do anything special to shorten the difference.

“What’s important is taking it a game at a time and the most important thing is what happens at the end. So you just need to continue to try your best and do your best.”

The Cubs are preaching the importance of the end of the season. They know they’re four games back right now, as both teams are off on Thursday.

But there are still 48 games left to be played.

“The most important thing for us is [48] games from now, when we’re at the end of the season, what that looks like,” third baseman Matt Shaw said. “That’s a lot of games left. We’re really just looking at tomorrow. We’re gonna get rolling, so we’re gonna be good.”

Right fielder Kyle Tucker echoed that sentiment.

“Right now, we’ve got [48] games left,” Tucker said. “Just trying to focus on today and move on to tomorrow and see where we’re at at the end of the year.”