Brewers win 4th NL Central title in last 5 seasons

The Milwaukee Brewers are once again kings of the National League Central.

Despite losing in St. Louis on Sunday, Milwaukee clinched its third straight division title and its fourth in the last five seasons, thanks to the Chicago Cubs' 1-0 loss to the Cincinnati Reds.

It's the seventh division title in Brewers history.

The Brewers spent most of the first half chasing the Cubs, who had been the popular preseason pick to win the division. Milwaukee was 6 1/2 games back of Chicago in mid-June.

However, an early-summer surge, which included an 11-game winning streak in July, helped the Brewers catch up to their longtime rivals. Pat Murphy's team moved into first place for good on July 28, then pulled away from the Cubs with a 14-game winning streak in early August.

"It's not routine," catcher William Contreras told Adam McCalvy of MLB.com. "It's a little different this year because we started with a bad record. Nobody thought we were going to have the best record in baseball. That's great for us and for the team. The young guys, they had to see how we get there. We have to play hard every day."

Since 2018, the Brewers have reached the postseason seven times and won five division titles despite fielding one of the lower payrolls in baseball. However, they've won just one playoff series - the 2018 NLDS - during that span. Milwaukee last won a pennant in 1982, when the team played in the AL.

"I heard somebody say, 'We've got the regular season figured out. Now, we've got to figure out the playoffs,'" Murphy said. "That's one of the most absurd comments I've ever heard because nobody's got the regular season figured out. Have we done well in the regular season? Yes. Have we done more with a lot less? Yes. How does that translate to the playoffs?"

The Brewers' 95 wins are tops in the majors and one shy of tying the franchise record previously achieved in 2011 and 2018. In both of those seasons, the Brewers went on to reach the NLCS.