At the beginning of September 2018, Craig Counsell’s Milwaukee Brewers were just five games above .500 and in third place in their division, trailing the Cubs and Cardinals. But thanks to a scorching 20-7 finish, the Brewers won the National League Central and went to the playoffs that year.
Six years later, Counsell’s Chicago Cubs are currently two games above .500 and 5.5 games out of a National League wild card spot. It would take another incredible month of September for another Craig Counsell-led team to go from this far back to reaching the postseason, but the 2024 Cubs are showing signs that they might have such a run in them.
Following an abysmal May and June in which they went 21-34, the Cubs have steadily improved their winning percentage in the second half. They went just barely above .500 in July, but with two days left in August, the Cubs have gone 16-8 this month. In that stretch going back to the start of July, they have climbed from last place in their division to second and back within reach of a wild card.
Getting a playoff spot will still be a challenge for the Cubs; they would have to jump ahead of the Mets and Braves to get the last wild card. In the same stretch of games that the Cubs have gained so much ground in the standings, the Mets have gone 29-23 and the Braves 27-24, so Chicago is currently playing at a better pace than both teams. But current trajectories would have to continue for a few more weeks in order for the Cubs to gain sufficient ground on New York and Atlanta.
If they are going to do that, the Cubs have a schedule that should work to their advantage. They finish August against the Nationals, who are 12 games below .500, and in September, the Cubs play just three series against teams with winning records: The Yankees, Dodgers, and Phillies. Otherwise, 19 of their last 28 games are against teams with losing records. And in the last two weeks of the season, when the wild card race will likely be coming down to the wire, the Cubs play 10 of their final 13 games at home, where they’ve gone 36-29 this season.
And that’s just the schedule. It should be noted as well that the Cubs have improved as a team on multiple fronts: Their bullpen that cost so many games early in the season has boasted a sub-2.00 ERA since the end of June. The catcher’s spot, once an offensive black hole, has been a place of resurgence for Miguel Amaya, who is batting .352 with a .991 OPS over his last 30 games. Even backup catcher Christian Bethancourt has gotten in on the action — he was a catalyst for the Cubs’ 14-10 comeback win over the Pirates on Wednesday, driving in seven runs including the two-RBI go-ahead single in the ninth inning.
Along with those two, Pete Crow-Armstrong has found a groove at the plate. Long valued mostly for his defense, Crow-Armstrong has a .320 batting average and .926 OPS in his last 30 games.
The elevated play of guys like Amaya, Bethancourt, and Crow-Armstrong has had an impact on the rest of the lineup. They’ve made their way to a .709 collective OPS, and over the last 30 days, the Cubs have posted an .819 OPS, good for third in baseball.
If the Cubs do climb their way to a wild card spot at the end of the regular season, their journey won’t exactly mirror the Brewers of ‘18. That team came within a game of going to the World Series for the first time in franchise history since 1982, so their incredibly hot September carried over into October for a few more weeks. The Cubs’ hot stretch has more or less been going on since after the All Star break. Whether or not they will continue to thrive in the last month of the season will remain to be seen. They have the schedule for it, but the games still have to be played.
Below .500 by as many as nine games at the beginning of July, the Cubs have already improved their standing dramatically. Counsell, maligned during the first half of the season for presiding over one of the most disappointing teams in baseball, has since led that same group back into contention.
Is another “Craigtember” coming? Do the Cubs have a stretch in them like what Counsell’s Brewers did in 2018 — a year in which the Brewers knocked the Cubs off of the top of the division in game 163 — or will their struggles of May and June come back to haunt them? Though the path may not be exactly the same as six years ago, look out for another Counsell squad to make noise in September.
