If you didn’t stay up late Monday and haven’t checked the West Coast baseball scores yet, the Cubs awakened Tuesday morning in first place in the NL Central, taking over the top spot when the Cardinals lost 9-4 to the Dodgers.
But it’s not just another team losing that has brought the Cubs to first place for the first time since April 5.
It’s winning. The Cubs went 19-8 in May, and you might not realize just how good that is for a calendar month in franchise history.
Since 1945, that is just the 17th calendar month (including a couple of “months” in which a handful of October games were included) where the Cubs have won at least 19 games.