None of that changes the shape of the division. Milwaukee was the first team in baseball to 80 wins this season and hasn't let up since, while Chicago is still holding a wild-card spot but has had to scrap for it, including a stretch of tough losses in the last couple weeks. That gap is the backdrop for everything else on this page.
Both clubs have business to handle before Wednesday arrives. The Brewers close out a set with Texas first, then open this series with two games in Chicago before the finale-adjacent matinee gets here; the Cubs wrap up with Cincinnati before turning around to host Milwaukee for four straight. A lot can shift in a bullpen or a lineup card over four days — that's worth remembering with how this preview reads today versus how it'll read Wednesday.
Shota Imanaga's season has had its rough patches — he turned in the shortest start of his career earlier this month — but the bigger story in Chicago has been a lineup that can go from shutout loss to a 17-5 blowout inside 48 hours. That kind of streakiness is exactly what Counsell has described managing through this year. Milwaukee, meanwhile, keeps getting complete efforts up and down the roster, with Misiorowski's historic run doing a lot of the heavy lifting.
Dansby Swanson's oblique issue costs Chicago its regular shortstop into September, and that's the kind of thing that's easy to lose track of a few days out from a game — worth watching how the middle infield looks by the time Wednesday rolls around. Milwaukee's got its own long injury list in the bullpen, but the names trending back toward health outnumber the ones still parked on it.