Cubs NLDS Date With Milwaukee Will Determine The Real Top Crew

As the neon lights at Clark and Addison shone down on the scores of Wrigley faithful gathered to cheer on their favorite baseball team, the Chicago Cubs relished in the glory of a series-clinching win over the San Diego Padres. The win marked the first time in franchise history the Cubbies seized a winner-take-all contest at the Friendly Confines. Chicago has now earned the right to square off with the NL Central champion Milwaukee Brewers, looking to prove that the best team in this good land of ours resides in Illinois. 

When you're high, you're high, and it's hard to find a club from these Wild Card Series at a higher altitude than these Chicago Cubs. Through their regular-season supremacy over the Crew, Craig Counsell's squad proved it can more than hang with the lineup from Southeast Wisconsin, but with everything on the line, how will this match-up of baseball juggernauts shake out?

Offensive production, even for hot teams, tends to come in waves, but defense will get you to the promised land. Just ask Nico Hoerner and Dansby Swanson. The two elite Cubs infielders have turned the middle-infield into a black hole where opponents' October dreams get crushed like a can of Miller Lite in the alley behind Bernie's. Together, they have a combined +19 OAA, and in the late stages of their tilt with the Padres, stymied a free-swinging San Diego club. It's not much different in Milwaukee. Where an aggressive lineup of opportunistic boppers pounces on opposing pitchers almost before their walk-up music fades out, how then will the North Siders lock up the likes of Sal Frelick, Christian Yelich, and William Contreras? By staying the course. Oh, and did I mention that first-half Pete Crow-Armstrong came back?

Back in August, what we thought was going to be a five-game series to decide the NL Central turned out to be a litmus test to examine how the Cubbies could maneuver the season's most crushing disappointments. In collecting 3 of 5 versus the Barrel Man's Crew, Chicago proved that its vastly underrated pitching staff, with a well-crafted strategy from Counsell and pitching coach Tommy Hottovy, has some secret sauce when it comes to frustrating the Brewers' balanced lineup. The right formula of off-speed pitches and fastballs kept Chicago in every single contest.

In their thirteen regular-season tilts, Milwaukee found success when it was able to get to the Cubs' starters early, as has been the case with this Cubs team all year. If they can get through the first couple of frames with little to no damage, their likelihood of winning vastly soars. One thing that has stood out to me in these contests is that, while the Cubs dropped a few heartbreaking games to their Wisconsin rivals, it never seemed like they weren't in control at any point. And their series against the Friars proved this. Demonstrating the mark of a great manager, Counsell knew precisely when to challenge, when to get an early hook for his hurler, and when to disrupt a mounting rally from the opposition. 

I've said all along that if the Cubbies got the opportunity to dismiss their northern adversaries from the postseason, they'd seize it. Nothing this team has done for some time now has dissuaded me from this stance. The Brewers have good players, yes, but the Cubs have a good team. Here we go.