Every once in a while, we are blessed enough to see 162 games not be enough to settle a division champion. This year, it happened twice in the National League. The Rockies and Dodgers will square off in Dodger Stadium at 4:09 p.m. ET, but let's focus here on the NL Central. The Cubs will host the Brewers at 1:05 p.m. ET, which is just five minutes after noon in Wrigley Field. 

The rosters are still expanded and the stats count. This is essentially a regular-season game, though it's obviously billed as a tiebreaker and will absolutely be a playoff atmosphere. The winner secures the top NL seed and moves to Thursday to await hosting a wild card winner to start the NLDS. The loser must then play the loser of the NL West tiebreaker in the NL Wild Card Game on Tuesday. Whichever team loses here will be the home team in said game, as the Cubs and Brewers tied for the best record in the NL (and one might be going home after Tuesday -- crazy, right?). 

NL Central tiebreaker: Brewers (95-67) at Cubs (95-67)

  • Date: Monday, Oct. 1
  • Time: 1:05 p.m. ET
  • Location: Wrigley Field in Chicago
  • TV channel: ESPN
  • Streaming: WatchESPN 
  • Live stats: GameTracker
  • Picks: Check SportsLine's MLB pick sheet for all your daily odds. 

The Cubs won the season series, BUT ...

Remember back in 2015 when the Mets were 0-7 against the Cubs in the regular season but then swept them in the NLCS? That was a perfect illustration on why we shouldn't use the season series as meaningful when talking about postseason games. I know this is technically a regular-season game, but c'mon. It's kind of a playoff game. 

Anyway, for those interested, the Cubs are hosting this game because they went 11-8 against the Brewers this season. 

BUT

The Cubs won eight of the first nine games of the season series. 

So it was Cubs 8-1 and then Brewers 7-3 since. 

As noted, we can't say that gives the Brewers a big advantage here anymore than the season series win gives the Cubs one -- aside from home-field advantage (the Cubs are 51-30 at home; Brewers are 44-37 on the road). The Brewers are definitely playing better baseball, finishing the season on a seven-game winning streak and with a 19-7 September. The Cubs went 16-12 in the month. 

Cubs starter Quintana has great numbers against the Brewers

Jose Quintana is the only Cubs starter who wouldn't be going on short rest, so he's the easy pick here. He is 13-11 with a 4.09 ERA (105 ERA+), 1.32 WHIP and 154 strikeouts in 169 1/3 innings this season. He might well have been Joe Maddon's pick to get the ball here anyway, though, because here's what he's done against the Brewers in his career: 6-2, 1.60 ERA, 0.82 WHIP, 63 strikeouts, 14 unintentional walks, 67 1/3 innings and one shutout. 

Last time out, he spun 6 2/3 scoreless innings against them and the previous time gave up just two runs in 6 2/3 innings. The Brewers did light him up on Aug. 14 (6 IP, 5 ER), but pretty much every other time he's faced them, he's shut them down. 

The Brewers are likely to go bullpen-heavy

The Brewers haven't yet announced a starting pitcher for the game, but there appear to be two options. Jhoulys Chacin (15-8, 3.56) and Chase Anderson (9-8, 3.93) are the options who wouldn't be on short rest, though Anderson hasn't pitched since Sept. 18. It would appear it's Chacin or a bullpen game. On the latter, it wouldn't shock me to see Josh Hader get a start with Craig Counsell just seeing how long he's effective. 

The most likely road is Chacin, however, with a very short leash. 

The Brewers avoided using their big guns on Sunday as a likely precursor to heavily using them Monday. 

  • Hader hasn't pitched since Friday and he's gone up to three innings in an outing this season. He's worked at least two innings 22 times and gotten at least four outs in 32 of his 54 appearances. He'll go more than an inning here unless he gets knocked around. It could happen, too. Since the start of August, Hader has a 4.91 ERA. 
  • Jeremy Jeffress likely serves as the closer and has a 1.29 ERA and 0.99 WHIP with 89 strikeouts in 76 2/3 innings. He's gone two innings four times and has gotten at least four outs in 18 appearances. 
  • Corey Knebel has gone through injuries and inconsistency this season, but in September he's worked 15 1/3 innings and not allowed a single earned run. He's struck out 32 and walked three. He's only allowed five hits. Yikes. He went 1 2/3 innings on Sept. 12, so it's possible he can go more than one. 
  • Corbin Burnes has been getting some high-leverage spots in middle innings of late and has a 2.61 ERA and 1.00 WHIP on the season. He worked three innings one time and has gone two innings in seven of his 30 appearances. 

Just with those four alone, I think it's feasible that Counsell could cover at least seven innings. Joakim Soria has been good the last two weeks, too. 

Christian Yelich is stupid hot, has chance at history

He was already awesome, but the NL MVP (yes, he's going to win it with ease and rightfully so) hit .486/.620/1.216 with five doubles, two triples, six homers and 20 RBI in 11 games from Sept. 17-Sept. 29. On Sunday, he was 0-2 with two walks, but that doesn't mean he's totally cooled off. 

Yelich, by the way, can still win the Triple Crown. As noted above, this is a regular-season game. He's got average sewn up, barring something ridiculous (like him going 0 for 7 in extra innings knocks him to .319 while Ben Zobrist going 7 for 7 still only gets Zobrist to .318). 

In home runs, Yelich (36) was passed by Nolan Arenado (37) Sunday. He's down one there and Arenado is also playing Monday. So is Trevor Story, who also has 36 home runs while Jesus Aguilar has 35. 

In RBI, Yelich trails Javier Baez (likely the second-place finisher in MVP voting) by two, 111 to 109. Arenado is also at 109. All three are playing Monday. Heck, Jesus Aguilar (108) and Story (107) are also in action Monday. Crazy! 

While the American League has seen the Triple Crown happen six times since, most recently in 2012 with Miguel Cabrera, the NL hasn't seen a triple crown winner since 1937, when Hall of Famer Joe "Ducky" Medwick did it. 

Kris Bryant is showing signs of life

Early in the season, Kris Bryant was hit in the head with a pitch. Then he dealt with shoulder injuries and now has a wrist thing. Likely due to all this, he hasn't been the MVP-level performer, though he's still good at .274/.374/.463. On Sept. 17, he hit his first home run since returning from the disabled list and Friday he crushed one to dead center in Wrigley for another. He scorched a double on Sunday, too, and has been hitting a lot more balls hard like that in the last two weeks. He's not all the way "back" and probably won't be until a full offseason of rest for that shoulder, but having him hit the ball hard in the middle of that order makes this offense a lot scarier.