What the regular season tells us about the Cubs-Brewers looming NLDS matchup

There won’t be many surprises when the Chicago Cubs and Milwaukee Brewers open the National League Division Series Saturday at American Family Field.

The two division rivals have already played 13 times in 2025, the Cubs winning the season series seven games to six. And as everyone knows, Cubs manager Craig Counsell used to manage the Brewers when his top aide was current Brewers skipper Pat Murphy.

Throw in the natural rivalry produced by the geographic fact that only 90 miles separates the two rivals and it’s hard to envision anything happening over the next week that hasn’t already occurred.

Based on the season-long data, here’s what the Cubs know – or at least suspect – about their opponents from the north.

Superficially, the key to stopping Milwaukee’s offense appears easy to identify: Brice Turang. He was a .288 hitter for the season, but he hit .348 in the 13 games against the Cubs.  Turang’s .902 OPS against the Cubs was more than 100 points better than his season .794 OPS.

The problem with the logic of focusing on slowing Turang is that in 2025, it didn’t seem to matter whether his team won or lost; Turang chewed up the Cubs either way. He was a nice 6-for-23 in Milwaukee’s six victories over the Cubs, but he was an even better 10-for-23 in their seven defeats.

The other Brewers regulars had the kind of success against Cubs pitching you would generally expect. Setting Turang aside, William Contreras (.889) and Andrew Vaughn (.754) had the best OPS results in head-to-head matchups.

But the Cubs were pretty hard on Brewers centerpiece Christian Yelich, holding him to a .170 batting average and .618 OPS in 54 plate appearances. Isaac Collins, Caleb Durbin, Blake Perkins and Joey Ortiz all also fared poorly.

Brewers' pitching was dialed in against the Cubs as long as that pitcher was Freddy Peralta. He made four starts, covered 21 innings and won three of those four starts with a 3.43 ERA.

But the Cubs lit up most of the rest of the Milwaukee staff. The likely Game 2 starter, Quinn Priester, made three regular-season starts against the Cubs, those three covering 15 1/3 innings. Priester allowed 17 hits, eight earned runs (a 6.28 ERA), yet somehow still managed to survive with a  1-0 record.  

With Brandon Woodruff ruled out for the series by Murphy, Jose Quintana would likely get the ball for Game 3. The Cubs faced him once, netting six runs in five innings and tagging the familiar southpaw with the loss.

Counsell’s problem is that his best pitcher against Milwaukee won’t be on the postseason roster. As unlikely as this will sound to Cubs fans, the team’s secret weapon against Milwaukee was the much-maligned Ben Brown.

Brown may have been 5-8 with a 5.92 ERA for the season, but the Brewers were his favorite punching bag. He faced them twice, lasting 11 innings and giving up just two runs, and winning both starts. Go figure.

The Cubs probables this week had a tougher time. Matthew Boyd was 1-1 with a 7.84 ERA in wo starts, Shota Imanaga was 1-2 with a 3.57 ERA in three starts, and Jameson Taillon was 2-1 with a 4.50 ERA.

Cade Horton, whose status is uncertain as he recovers from a rib cage fracture, made one start against the Brewers, and it did not go well. He gave up three runs in 4 1/3 innings and took the loss.

Can Pete Crow-Armstrong keep laying waste to Brewers' pitching?

Three Cubs carried the offense in the head-to-head series, led by the overpowering presence that is Pete Crow-Armstrong. In 52 plate appearances against Milwaukee, PCA produced a dozen hits, five of them home runs, and a team-leading 11 RBI for a 1.063 OPS. Among National League teams, only the Dodgers suffered more statistically at the hands of Crow-Armstrong.

Kyle Tucker wasn’t quite that good, but he was good enough. In 45 plate appearances, he hit .314 with a .953 OPS. Ian Happ also hit the Brewers well, going 12-for-41 (.293) with a .971 OPS.

There wasn’t much to choose between the two teams’ bullpen stats. Cubs relievers allowed 22 earned runs and 35 base hits in 46 2/3 innings of work against the Brewers. For the Milwaukee pen, the comparables were 54 innings, 23 earned runs and 40 base hits.

The one element the season series lacks a lot of is drama. Although the Cubs outscored the Brewers by only four runs over the course of their 13 games, only two of those games were decided by one run – one to each team. By contrast, seven of the 13 were decided by four runs or more, among them a 10-0 Cubs win on May 2, a 10-3 Cubs win on July 30 -- both, by the way, in Milwaukee – and a 7-0 Brewers victory at Wrigley on Aug. 18.

So while it will surprise nobody if this series goes five games, the data suggests it may be a succession of slaughters.