Brewers win, Cubs lose — NL Central is back in Crew's control mode now

MILWAUKEE — You might have noticed that the Brewers can’t lose, that they’ve been hands-down better than the Cubs — again — for the past two and a half months, and that despite their small-market status and their meager budget to spend on players, they’ve put together, incredibly, the best damn record in baseball.

They rallied for a 3-2 win in the opener of a weekend series against the boffo-spending Mets and $765 million man Juan Soto and now have won seven straight games, 10 of 11 and — for the love of Gouda, this shouldn’t even be possible — 46 of their last 62 since May 25. That's 30 games over .500 in 11 weeks, people.

The Brewers are 71-44 and hit 70 wins earlier than any other team in franchise history. With a five-game lead on the Cubs, who lost in St. Louis, they’re almost easing toward their third straight National League Central title and their fourth in five years.

Another Central race in Crew’s control mode? Really?

If it weren’t so hard-earned and well deserved, it might be kind of annoying.

An interloper from Cubdom lumbered into manager Pat Murphy’s office Friday at American Family Field and asked: So, what’s the secret sauce around here?

“There’s certainly no secret sauce,” the reigning NL manager of the year said. “That’s comical. We’re playing the same game everybody else is.”

It doesn’t look like it, though.

“I just think it’s about people,” Murphy said. “It’s about people and hungry players. In today’s game, you don’t have as many veterans hanging around and stirring the drink. When you do, it’s easy to have divided attention. [But] these guys are just worried about whether their locker is going to be there when they get back [into the clubhouse] that night."

Does people power beat pure talent? Around here, it sure seems to. That doesn’t start with the 66-year-old Murphy, who was Cubs skipper Craig Counsell’s bench coach for eight seasons in Milwaukee, because it was true before he ascended to the top step. But Murphy had a strong hand in the culture here under Counsell and arguably has improved on it. Inarguably, he has been the division’s best manager since taking the reins in 2024.

Murphy is a huge Bruce Springsteen fan, but the “No retreat, no surrender” tattooed in script on his left forearm also makes a perfect mantra for this team. Then again, this team already has a few of those.

One of them was shared by rookie starting pitcher Jacob Misiorowski, who probably is the most talented player in the organization. He certainly is the most talked-about from the outside. Here, though, he hangs as unassumingly at his locker as anyone else — no drama, no big deal.

“Everyone’s so friendly here,” he said. “Everyone’s awesome and just having fun. It’s so easy to be around. It’s the power of friendship.”

At that, pitcher Grant Anderson, overhearing Misiorowski, pulled up his sweatshirt to reveal a T-shirt with those very words: “The Power of Friendship.” All-Star reliever Trevor Megill, a former Cub, used that dynamic to describe his team while being interviewed in Atlanta before the Midsummer Classic, and the sentiment stuck.

What do the words mean to Megill now that his teammates are wearing them on their chests?

“It’s cool,” he said. “We’re low budget. Coffee and friendship. No frills. The league probably hates us.”

Second baseman Brice Turang, who crushed a 424-foot game-tying home run in the fifth inning of the opener of this series, took it further.

“I 100% believe in ‘the power,’ ” he said. “Just, we all get along so well, man. Words can’t really describe it. We all get along, we’re all friends, and the way we all just go out there and play hard and compete together, I don’t think it’s the norm.”

Meanwhile, the Brewers are too busy smacking around all comers to be worried about the Cubs. Friday's game ended in spectacular fashion, with center fielder Blake Perkins firing a strike to home plate to nail a sliding Staring Marte, who came within an eyelash of tying it on Jeff McNeil's single.

Might we be looking at the first 100-win Brewers team ever? The old World Series core of Robin Yount, Paul Molitor, Cecil Cooper and Gorman Thomas never got there. The winningest Brewers team, in 2018, won 96 under Counsell.

“I don’t know,” outfielder Christian Yelich said. “That remains to be seen. We obviously have bigger goals than just winning a certain number of games.”

What’s the team’s biggest strength?

Yelich thought about that one awhile, then began, “Here’s who we are. …

“We’re a close-knit team. We have each other’s backs. A lot of our guys have been told that they weren’t good enough in other places. But we really believe in each other, and there’s a hunger there. … The more you can bond around just the guys in the room and playing for each other and focus on winning that night, it’s something that can galvanize a team.”

Yelich has battled and beaten the Cubs many times before. He’s confident in that outcome again, though he holds them in high regard.

“The Cubs are a very talented team,” he said. “They’ve got a lot of really good players. They’re very good. They led the division for the majority of the year. They’ve got a ton of All-Stars over there. We really respect that team.

“I think we understand that we need to play with a toughness and an edge and we need to play really hard every night just to win games, because that’s what it requires for our team. … We have a lot of players that are receptive to that kind of stuff and understand if we all buy into this, it’s going to be a success. Nobody’s bigger than the team.”