Cubs Week in Review: North Siders Eliminated from Postseason by Milwaukee's "Team of Destiny"

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And just like that, the Chicago Cubs' 2025 campaign has concluded. Securing their first playoff victory since 2017, the Cubs got to play eight additional games, past the standard 162. They're heading into their shortest offseason since 2020, and yet, it feels as though it's starting too soon. Watching the team that dispatched them take almost as much pleasure in the Cubs' demise as in their own triumph, the overall takeaway from a season full of promise is a bad taste more bitter than Malört. 

The grind began eight months ago, when pitchers and catchers reported to Arizona. As Matt Shaw pointed out, it somehow feels as though even more time has elapsed. The Milwaukee Brewers, enjoying a season for the ages, had no regard for the Cubs' sentimental whims, nor visions of keeping their season alive. A 7-3 dispatching of the Cubs in Game 2 of the NLDS proved as much. Enthusiasts of Chicago's North Side baseball team are now acutely aware of the liability their left-handed ace Shota Imanaga poses. For much of the second half of the season, the 32-year-old hurler battled goferitis, and he gave up three home runs in front of a Brewers-mad crowd hell-bent on keeping Cubs supporters from establishing a presence inside Milwaukee's unfriendly confines. There had been several inflection points this season where the Cubs' banged-up pitching staff manifested serious trouble for Craig Counsell's squad. With Cade Horton and Justin Steele out, the North Siders never enjoyed the benefit of operating at full strength on the mound. Imanaga could not place pitches with the consistency and precision he needed, and a puzzling drop in velocity turned his fastball into glorified batting practice. The emphatic loss brought the Cubs a game away from elimination. 

With orange-tinged ivy ringing the outfield, the grossly underrated Jameson Taillon and the Cubs delayed the Brewers' bliss by one more day with a stirring 4-3 victory in Wednesday's Game 3. Michael Busch is arguably the best thing going in a Cubs uniform, and proved it with his third homer of the postseason, a first-inning blast off of Chicagoland-native Quinn Priester. Priester was chased early from the contest, which saw the home team post a 4-spot in the first inning, their most runs scored in postseason baseball since 2017. The heroics of an inspired bullpen turned dejection into just the smallest glimmer, forcing a Game 4 the following evening.

Every moment at Wrigley Field is memorable, but the Cubs' 6-0 blanking of the Brewers in Game 4 was one for the ages. It was a lockdown performance in all phases of the game, including from an offense which solved the mystery of scoring past the first inning. Marked by Ian Happ's breathtaking 3-run moonshot to deep right field, the whisper of hope for the Cubs in this Division Series turned into an all-out roar louder than the chants of "FRE-DDY" echoing throughout Wrigley Field. 

And then, on a chilly mid-October night in Milwaukee, the roar was silenced. This current Brewers club didn't earn its "Underdogs That Could" reputation by giving easy outs, and they didn't do that in this decisive contest, either. Drew Pomeranz was trusted with opening the do-or-die game. In a scenario where the Cubs desperately needed a clean first inning, the veteran hurler could not deliver. Pomeranz surrendered a first-inning blast to William Contreras that set a grim tone for the away team. Slugger Seiya Suzuki briefly evened the score, answering with a long ball of his own, but the Cubs' offense looked overmatched and exhausted in comparison to what Pat Murphy's club was able to orchestrate. In a cruel twist of fate, Kyle Tucker—in what was likely his last game as a Cub—whiffed on a 3-1, straight-down-the-pipe fastball that could have (at a minimum) tied the game, had he connected. Season disconnected. 

This season had almost everything. In winning 96 games, the organization announced that it holds itself to the same high standards the rest of us do. We also witnessed the meteoric rise of potential stars Pete Crow-Armstrong and Cade Horton. And in defeat, this season pointed out how far this team has to go in claiming the sport's ultimate prize. With the 10-year anniversary of the last World Series team looming in 2026, the coming months will reveal whether or not this organization will do what's necessary to dive even further into postseason waters.

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