The Cubs just pulled off a surprising three-game sweep of the Pirates, offsetting early season Pirates domination.  There was a point back in April when I honestly thought that the Pirates were the team to beat in the Central, but that was before the Starling Marte suspension.  Currently, Pittsburgh is 10 games behind the Cubs, even though the Pirates had a 7-5 edge going into August.  The Cubs now hold a slim one-game margin before next week’s four-game final series of the year.  Those games in Pittsburgh will have a big impact on the Central Division in the final month of the regular season.

The Cubs haven’t pulled off as many series sweeps as I thought they would this year.  They did not have a single sweep in April, but were swept themselves by the Pirates.  The Yankees, Dodgers, and Padres also pulled-off sweeps against the Cubs as part of a disappointing month of May.  They did manage to counter with all 3 games against the Reds in May, and have won at least one game in every series since.  They started the month of June with a sweep of the Cardinals, followed by consecutive sweeps of the Orioles and Braves just after the All Star Break.  The Cubs are now 29-15 since the break.  Plus, they took all three against the Blue Jays and now the Pirates in August.  There seems to be some consistency that was missing in the first two months the year when they were apparently suffering from that World Series hangover.

The Braves are currently in Chicago for four games, before the team heads to Pittsburgh.  Then the Brewers come to Wrigley to try to diminish that 3 1/2 game lead.  This is where the season gets exciting, but the Cubs will be hard to catch if they continue playing at their current .659 winning percentage since the break.  The Brewers next face the Nationals and Reds before their first of six final shots against the division-leading Cubs.  Only 30 games left on the 2017 Cubs schedule, and if they can win 20 that would give them 92 total wins and a ticket to the Playoffs.  The red hot Dodgers already have 91 victories to lead the majors, but the dangerous Brewers recently brought their brooms and bats to the ballpark and gave them their first black eye since the Nationals did it back in June.

Can the Cubs continue their 3-game winning streak?   It would be comforting to start September with a couple of sweeps and a winning streak.  At the very least, they need to maintain that important record of not being swept since May.  Let’s Go Cubs.