Chicago Cubs are treating the Milwaukee Brewers like a second-class baseball team. Brewers ought to feel like they are getting punked by the World Series champion. Earlier this year, we had John Lackey’s asine comments about Eric Thames then we had the rainout fiasco and now we have another edition of mind games. Cubs are moving Friday’s start time to 7:00 pm to accommodate Chicago’s travel schedule. This will be the first-ever Friday night game at Wrigley Field. While these are mind games, it’s clear the Cubs fear the Brewers and that’s a good feeling.

Cubs know damn well this is a major series. They are red-hot feasting on the doldrums of the National League. But the pesky Brewers haven’t went away. They are only 3.5 games out of first place with seven games left against Chicago. There’s a ton of shit that happen in the next 30 days. Milwaukee isn’t showing signs of stopping as they’ve won four of their last five, and 11-5 since they went on a six-game losing streak. Chicago isn’t playing this dumb and know they can easily be caught in this division. A part of me feels like both teams are getting in with Colorado Rockies seeing Arizona and Los Angeles for 11 of the next 14.

All of this being said, the rivalry between the two teams is growing. Cubs fans cannot use this Don Draper line, even though they want to say Milwauke doesn’t matter. Guess what, we fucking matter. There’s a reason the team you cheer for sought out support to get the time of a game changed. They know this game means too much to have tired legs. The mind games are fun, and while it did piss me off for a minute, I’m going to chalk it up to gamesmanship over anything else. Chicago wants an even playing field.

Man, you hope Cubs-Brewers next weekend means as much as it does at this very moment. As a Brewer fan, I would love to see the team less than three back, but there’s a long way to go with three games versus Washington with Max Scherzer going on Saturday night plus Cincinnati can be pesky at times.

Charlie.