When Jed Hoyer hired Craig Counsell as the Chicago Cubs manager after the 2023 season, he brought up Counsell’s 2017 Milwaukee Brewers team that hung in the division race with the Cubs until the final week.

“That team had no right to be there,” Hoyer said. “They made us play to the last week of the season, and from a talent standpoint, that just wasn’t close. That was probably the time we were like, ‘What are they doing?’”

Counsell is now on the other side of the rivalry, but the Cubs are looking up at the first-place Brewers and once again asking the same old question:

“What are they doing?”

Neither rain nor floods nor a paltry payroll can stop the Brewers, who entered Monday with a nine-game winning streak and six-game lead over the Cubs in the National League Central. With a week remaining before the teams’ five-game showdown at Wrigley Field, the Brewers are threatening to run away with a division that was in the Cubs’ hands almost the entire first half.

Now we’ll find out whether Counsell can keep the Cubs atop the wild-card race while trying to chip away at the deficit, starting Tuesday night in Toronto.

If Counsell got a mulligan for 2024, the start of ‘25 looked like validation for Hoyer’s stunning move. For four months his moves worked to near perfection, and the only question was who would start in the first playoff series after Shota Imanaga and Matthew Boyd.

But the current mini slump (8-11 since July 20), combined with the Brewers’ refusal to lose, has added pressure on Counsell to find a way back into the division race before it’s too late. The Brewers have shown they can succeed without him. Can Counsell’s presence help the Cubs hang in the race, like it did with the ’17 Brewers?

If you’re looking for clues on the Counsell Way, simply flash back to Aug. 2 at Wrigley Field, where Pete Crow-Armstrong stepped up to the plate against a left-hander with two on and two outs in the bottom of the ninth and the Cubs trailing the Baltimore Orioles by one run.

Crow-Armstrong struck out to end the game, and the next day Counsell was asked whether he considered pinch-hitting for his star center fielder with Justin Turner on the bench.

“Look, I’ve got Pete Crow-Armstrong up there for a chance to tie the game, and I’m not ready to change the at-bat right there,” he replied.

It was a valid response. Crow-Armstrong has been one of the Cubs’ best hitters all year and was one of the main reasons for their first-half success. No one could blame Counsell for giving him an opportunity to play the hero in front of a packed house at Wrigley, even if the percentages called for a right-handed hitter.

But Counsell added he wouldn’t hesitate to pinch-hit for Crow-Armstrong in the future, depending on the situation. That moment arrived Sunday night in St. Louis, with the Cubs trailing by one in the ninth and Crow-Armstrong leading off against a left-hander.

Crow-Armstrong was in a 2-for-30 slump in his last eight games with 13 strikeouts and no extra-base hits or RBIs. He also was hitting .193 against lefties, the biggest weakness in his game.

So this time Counsell opted for Turner as a pinch hitter. It didn’t work. Turner flied out, and though the Cubs had a scoring opportunity in the inning, they wound up losing 3-2 to fall six games back.

Counsell naturally was skewered on social media, despite Crow-Armstrong’s recent slump and overall numbers against lefties, for taking the bat out of the hands of his Most Valuable Player candidate.

Whether it was the right decision or not, Counsell showed he’s not afraid to make a tough call, knowing the reaction would be harsh if it didn’t work. That’s comforting to know because he’ll have to make a lot of tough calls in the stretch run with a lineup that has sputtered since the All-Star break, a rotation in flux due to injuries and a bullpen that has done quite a bit of heavy lifting.

The blowback against Counsell over the last couple of weeks has been amplified on sports-talk radio and social media, which is something we haven’t really seen on the North Side since the Mike Quade era in 2011.

Former managers Dale Sveum and Rick Renteria weren’t blamed for all the losing in the rebuild years from 2012-14, and Joe Maddon was widely revered after making the NL Championship Series in his first year and ending the World Series title drought in his second.

David Ross had his share of critics, but his previous role as the lovable “Grandpa” on the 2016 champs helped shield him from some blame for the late-season collapse from a wild-card spot in 2023. Obviously Hoyer felt otherwise, which led to the cold-blooded firing of Ross and the signing of Counsell for a record $40 million over five years.

Like a player with a huge contract, the expectations on Counsell to live up to his deal are immense. But he can do that only by winning, and now that the Cubs have hit a speed bump, whatever he did in the first half is deemed irrelevant.

No one is feeling sorry for Counsell. He’s paid handsomely because of his success doing things his way in Milwaukee, as evidenced by the 2017 division race that Hoyer mentioned and the 2018 ending in which the Brewers beat the Cubs for the division title in a Game 163 tiebreaker at Wrigley.

Taking the heat is part of the gig, and Counsell has been at it long enough to know any manager will get some when his team goes from a 6½-game lead on June 17 to six games behind on Aug. 11. He couldn’t be too happy with Hoyer’s failure to add a frontline starter at the trade deadline, but he said all the right things to the media afterward, even after Michael Soroka’s injury 31 pitches into his Cubs debut.

A wild-card berth still would give the Cubs a chance at getting to the World Series, and they’re in great position to be the top wild-card team. But the free fall from first place can’t be forgotten.

These final seven weeks of the regular season will make or break the Cubs — and perhaps serve as a referendum on Hoyer’s decision to steal Counsell from Milwaukee.

The Cubs are at the crossroads, and there’s no turning back.