National League Division Series 2025

 Cubs vs. Brewers

It has been a wonderful year with the Cubs who held on to first place for much of the season.  However, when any team becomes as hot as the Brewers got this year (including 2 13-game winning streaks), no one can argue against this matchup for the Division title.  

The Cubs bats, in the height of the two Brewers winning streaks, seemed to take a vacation.  The two most consistent hitters throughout the season have probably been Nico Hoerner and Michael Busch.  However, at the beginning of the year, the fun players like Seiya Suzuki, Kyle Tucker, and Pete Crow-Armstrong were having great starts.  Unfortunately, those three men all seemed to go cold at the same time and scoring runs was hard to come by during that period.

The brightest surprise in my opinion this year was Carson Kelly taking over as the primary catcher after Miguel Amaya got injured.  Kelly's bat and arm and defense really helped keep us on target and focused enough to get to the playoffs.  He really gave the Cubs a spark when it counted.  Reese McGuire (the Cubs "third" catcher) also gave us some well-timed offense.  In my humble opinion, this is the one position that there should be NO change in the off-season.  Miguel Amaya is NOT a star.  Moises Ballesteros would make a better person to be the back-up if the Cubs make any moves behind the plate.  We have not seen him behind the plate, but that would be interesting.

Shout outs have to go out to Ian Happ (who got hot late in the year), Dansby Swanson (always great for defense), and Matt Shaw who was the underdog to be the starting third baseman and won the hearts of many after a tough start to the season.

The pitching has been great all season, save a week or two.  There were very few games when the Cubs were "blown out" by the competition.  Between Boyd, Imanaga, Rea, Taillon, and Horton, they really stepped up.  Think about what the Cubs might have been WITH Steele and Assad not being injured all season long.  And the bullpen, while it became "closer of the week" again, really all were very good.  There were very few times that anyone came in to have poor outing.  Porter Hodge was supposed to be that guy who would have been the next big thing.  It didn't turn out that way.  Daniel Palencia, Brad Keller, Caleb Thielbar, Drew Pomeranz, and Andrew Kittridge all had good years.

While I was much more hopeful for the Cubs with Hodge at the beginning of the season, he just would not find the strike zone.

The Cubs main task against the Brewers in the upcoming series is to keep the ball in the ballpark.  The person I worry about the most in that area is Imanaga.  For as good as he is, that has been his one bane this year -- homers.  The good news on that is that most of them are solo shots.

As good as the Brewers pitching is, I think the Cubs will win the series.