AP Photo/Kayla Wolf

The Rundown: Cubs Roll Brewers in Milwaukee, I-94 Rivalry Best in Baseball, World Cup Expanding MLB Fanbase

Photo of Michael Canter Michael CanterJune 29, 2026

“Sing boom tararrel! Ring out a song of good cheer.” — Beer Barrel Polka by Frankie Yankovic and Walter Ostanek

The Cubs faced the Brewers’ best starters this weekend and took the series two games to one after yesterday’s improbable extra inning win. That’s one of the more impressive efforts of 2026, two 10-game winning streaks included. The two rivals play seven more games this season, but won’t meet again until August 31, and both rosters could see significant change by then. Chicago has about a dozen pitchers on the IL, so we can safely assume its front office has cast the widest net possible to add to that group. The Brewers have their eyes on the World Series and are looking for a veteran ace, plus bullpen and bench help.

One thing we can be sure of is that Jed Hoyer won’t half-ass it as the trade deadline approaches. That said, his wishlist rarely lines up with what Cubs fans want, and we further know Hoyer won’t overpay for anybody. Reid Detmers might look much more appealing to Hoyer than Sonny Gray, for example. He’s also bound to look beyond any obvious warts or blemishes when adding to the team’s bullpen. Additionally, Hoyer would probably prefer pitchers who are not playing on expiring contracts, particularly when it comes to rotation additions.

The Cubs proved they could play with and beat the Brewers, and they did it behind a patchwork pitching staff that had no business hanging with their opponent. With that in mind, you can bet Hoyer and Milwaukee GM Matt Arnold will be talking to the same teams about the same pitchers. That list no doubt contains Detmers, Gray, Tarik Skubal, Joe Ryan, and Sandy Alcántara, among others. The Cubs are already fortunate enough to have landed David Peterson from the Mets. Peterson earned a big win in his debut with Chicago on Saturday.

The Cubs have kind of quietly won 12 of their last 16 games, a splendid two-week run for a team that was flogged by everybody for about five weeks previous to that. The fruit of those efforts is a two-game reduction in the gap between Milwaukee and Chicago. That’s not much from our point of view, but it’s huge for Hoyer. The Cubs are almost assuredly deadline buyers with a decent shot at getting the top Wild Card seed. An NLDS rematch with the Brewers seems almost inevitable, and pitching will win that series. July should therefore be an eventful month for both teams, especially after the All-Star break July 12-17.

Cubs News & Notes

Ball Four

How would you order them?

I’d go Roberto Clemente, Ichiro Suzuki, Al Kaline, and Vladimir Guerrero. That said, I don’t think Vlad belongs on this list. Babe Ruth played right field and he automatically goes to the top, bumping everyone else down. We’re also leaving out Henry Aaron, Mel Ott, Joe Jackson, and Frank Robinson, off the top of my head. I believe Stan Musial played right field, too, and I know Reggie Jackson did. I would not include Sammy Sosa, but not because many believe he cheated. Baseball has just had too many great right fielders, so Sosa may not even make the top 20 list.

Central Intelligence

  • Milwaukee (50-31): This year marks the 10th consecutive season that the Brewers are competing for a playoff berth. Milwaukee contends every year because they refuse to include top prospects in trades. That may have to change this year if the front office wants to acquire Skubal, especially if the Tigers want Luis Lara and his team-friendly contract.
  • Chicago (46-38): Speaking of hot prospects, switch-hitting catcher Owen Ayers is having a scorching June at Double-A Knoxville. The 25-year-old Ayers is 9-for-17 since last Monday, including two home runs, one double, two RBIs and six walks.
  • St. Louis (43-38): The failure to get a big hit when necessary continues to doom the Cardinals. St. Louis has now lost four straight games after being swept by the Marlins.
  • Pittsburgh (42-42): Paul Skenes has been anything but dominant this season, and he’s lost a tick or two on his fastball. He’s not concerned, and neither are the Pirates.
  • Cincinnati (39-43): The Reds open a series against the Brewers today, but Milwaukee taxed its bullpen in a weekend series with the Cubs. Cincinnati will not face Kyle Harrison or Brandon Woodruff in the four-game set, either. Maybe Terry Francona could do the Cubs a solid and sweep the Brewers.

How About That!

The World Cup is “providing a boost in attendance and pageantry” across MLB cities.

The Angels parted ways with general manager Perry Minasian after five-plus seasons on Friday and hired John Mozeliak to fill the interim GM role for the remainder of the 2026 campaign.

Rays slugging third baseman Junior Caminero now has seven homers in six games, including a titanic 463-foot shot he hit yesterday off of Merrill Kelly.

The Rangers are reportedly signing free agent pitcher Chris Paddack to a major league contract.

Royals catcher Carter Jensen extended his hit streak to 19 games, a team record for rookies.

Veteran Mets infielder Marcus Semien has a Grade 3 hip flexor injury and will miss at least a month.

Three from the Bill Chuck Files

  1. Kyle Schwarber is on pace to hit 59 homers this season. Bryce Harper is on pace to hit 36 homers this season. That would put both players at exactly 399 career home runs to end the year.
  2. Tuesday night, when Jazz Chisholm Jr. homered in Detroit, he became the 91st player to hit a home run against all 30 MLB franchises.
  3. Going into play yesterday, the Dodgers, Cubs, and Nationals led the majors, scoring 197 runs each from the 6th inning on this season. The difference between those teams is that the Dodgers have allowed 133 runs in that time frame, the Cubs have allowed 158, and the Nationals have allowed a major league-worst 212 runs. That’s why Hoyer will continue to focus on bullpen additions.

Not All Heroes Wear Capes

Bryse Wilson pitched 4.1 innings of shutout relief with four strikeouts in yesterday’s win. That’s another in a long line of scrap heap wins for Hoyer. I may send Mr. Wilson two free passes to Six Flags Great America. I probably should give ol’ Jed a couple, too.

Apropos of Nothing

I’m all for subscribing to services that provide good content. Bill Chuck certainly qualifies, as does The Athletic, Baseball Prospectus, and Baseball America. I don’t usually pay for traditional news outlets, but the NY Post is an exception because Jon Heyman is so informative. Heyman wrote about the predicament the Mets are in this season ($) as sellers without much of a shot of bettering their organizational health or much to really sell. It’s a great read, especially if you subscribe to the theory that buying championships is just as much a crapshoot as any other front office strategy, only much more costly.

From Heyman: “Teams that spend $500 million — $380M payroll, plus associated tax — should never have to give up by early summer. But that’s what we are looking at now…The two most valuable of their obvious trade pieces aren’t marketable yet. Freddy Peralta first needs to string together more starts like his last one and Clay Holmes needs to recover. For today, their most coveted trade bait might be setup man Luke Weaver, who hasn’t given up a run since April. But unlike Peralta and Holmes, he isn’t a free agent, so they may want to hold on to him.”

Son of Apropos

A ton of Cubs fans made the trip to Milwaukee this weekend, which was nice to see. We also hosted the second leg of Summerfest, and the 6th annual World Naked Bike Ride, which ran simultaneously with the Milwaukee Underwear Bike Ride.

I also met a couple of dedicated readers at Boone & Crockett, the bar on South Water Street that I work at on weekends. A great time was had by all.

Extra Innings

You can’t tell me that the I-94 Rivalry is not the best in baseball. I know that Red Sox-Yankees and Cubs-Cardinals have a much richer history, but did you hear the crowds at AmFam Field this weekend? Let go of the past. Every game is a passionate battle, and it is the best in baseball. Give credit to Bud Selig for recognizing the possibility long before it became a reality.

They Said It

  • “My best year of my career was in ’23 with Craig Counsell. He’s a phenomenal manager. Being able to play with him and know that he has some sort of confidence in me? It’s been a couple of years, but to know that he knows what kind of pitcher I am is awesome.” – Wilson
  • “The cumulative effect [of all the injuries] is you just start running out of pitchers in your organization that are ready to go. We have, obviously, bodies. But the quality has to go down. We don’t have that big of a stockpile. I don’t think anybody does. So we’re going to have to get through it. We’ll keep looking for guys that can do the job.” – Counsell
  • “I’m thinking about our team right now. We’ve just gone through this period of pitcher loss. We got to get through this phase. That’s No. 1. That’s really the focus of everything for me right now. Let’s get our team through this phase and come out the other side with some semblance of order in how we’re going to run it the rest of the year.” – Counsell

Monday Walk-Up Song

I probably love this band more than anybody else and I really don’t care. Fun Fact: Brian Wilson actually loved this song and played it live several times.

Photo of Michael Canter Michael CanterJune 29, 2026
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