MILWAUKEE — Right on cue, the Labor Day sellout crowd of 42,368 booed when Craig Counsell’s name was announced during pregame introductions and the headshot of the Chicago Cubs manager appeared on American Family Field’s gigantic video board.Milwaukee Brewers fans get to relish these moments because their team — Counsell’s former employer and hometown club — keeps dominating the National League Central.At this point, the likeliest best-case scenario for the Cubs is securing home-field advantage for the wild-card round and then hoping to advance to get another chance to play the Brewers in a best-of-five series.That’s the state of play in the I-94 rivalry after the Cubs failed to protect a one-run lead in Monday’s eighth inning, resulting in a 4-3 loss that spotlighted the manager’s decisions.“When you play the best teams in the league, you got to do a lot of things right to beat ’em,” Counsell said afterward, sitting at a desk in the manager’s office inside the visiting clubhouse. “We did a lot of things right, but you got to do almost everything right to beat ’em.“Anytime you go up against the best teams, you got to bring it in all areas. Everybody’s got to bring it on the vast majority of the night. They were a little better than us today.”Matthew Boyd attempted to become the first Cubs’ starter this season to record an out in the eighth inning, but he was removed from Monday’s game after surrendering a walk and a double. (Benny Sieu / Imagn Images)Without the sort of deep, dominant bullpen that plays up in October, Counsell planned to have lefty Matthew Boyd face two more hitters at the bottom of Milwaukee’s lineup in the eighth inning. Milwaukee manager Pat Murphy also had Jake Bauers, a solid left-handed hitter, available off the bench for the right matchup.The state of Chicago’s pitching staff is such that no starter has recorded an out in the eighth inning this season. Boyd, who was under 90 pitches through seven innings, walked Garrett Mitchell and then gave up a double to Joey Ortiz.As the Brewers moved to the top of their order, Counsell summoned Ryan Zeferjahn, the club’s big bullpen addition at the trade deadline. Jackson Chourio promptly knocked Zeferjahn’s 98.5 mph sinker through the right side of the infield for a two-run single that flipped it from Cubs up 2-1 to a Milwaukee 3-2 lead. The Brewers added an insurance run that turned out to be the game-winner.That’s the thing about watching these back-and-forth games in Milwaukee. The two teams always appear to be evenly matched on paper, and it usually comes down to a few plays here and there on the field, yet the Cubs still haven’t won the Central over a full 162-game season since 2017.“They don’t give you much,” Boyd said. “Winning in those margins is something that they’ve done that’s led them to those division titles over the past few years.”The Brewers finished 10 games ahead of the Cubs in 2024, Counsell’s first season in Chicago, which ended outside the playoffs with the same record (83-79) that got David Ross fired.Last year, the Brewers finished five games in front of the Cubs and then eliminated their big-market rival in October, celebrating with an L flag in their team photo, mocking a Wrigley Field tradition.At this juncture, the Cubs needed a three-game sweep to win the season series against the Brewers and earn a tiebreaker advantage if they could somehow close a big September gap. Now facing an eight-game deficit with only 17 games remaining, the math realistically doesn’t work.“I’m focused on tomorrow,” Cubs third baseman Alex Bregman said after going 2-for-3 with a walk and an RBI. “We got to keep it just one game at a time, especially this time of year. I haven’t even really looked at the standings, to be completely honest with you. We got to win the next game and take that mentality all the way through the end.”During Monday’s game in Milwaukee, the Philadelphia Phillies (81-63) notched a 1-0 victory over the Atlanta Braves at Citizens Bank Park, giving the Phillies a half-game lead over the Cubs (81-64) for the NL’s top wild card. The Cubs, though, have already won their season series against Philadelphia.Jesús Luzardo — a pitcher the Cubs were on the verge of acquiring ahead of the 2025 season before spiking the deal with the Miami Marlins during the medical review — struck out 12 in a complete-game, two-hit shutout for the Phillies.Kyle Schwarber — the 2016 World Series legend the Cubs released after the 2020 season amid pandemic-related budget cuts — launched his 43rd homer to give the Phillies the one run they needed.Scoreboard-watching is part of the September experience, seeing if the Cubs can secure the No. 1 wild-card spot and a playoff series at Wrigley Field, and tracking whether the Phillies can edge Chicago for that spot or even overtake the Braves in the NL East.Counsell’s view of all that? Not interested.“The best way for us to think about it is on a daily basis,” Counsell said. “It’s not the standings. It’s: Does how we do things today affect tomorrow? And can we survive tomorrow? Can we survive the following day? Am I going to put people in bad situations if we do this? That’s just how you think about it all the time.“As you get to the end of the season, you can start to push a little bit harder, but you still have to be very careful with that. Everybody can tell you that, because there are longer-term (concerns). Pushing too hard can lead to something worse for more games than just two outs or three outs. You always have to consider that.”The reality is the Cubs don’t have a true ace or a traditional closer to push to the limit. They have leading NL MVP candidate Pete Crow-Armstrong, who hit his 41st home run off Brewers closer Trevor Megill in the ninth inning and stole his 34th and 35th bases. They also have a solid 1-through-5 rotation, a deep lineup, versatile bench pieces and bullpen questions to answer.Another five-game playoff series might be a coin flip. But over a six-month season, the totality just hasn’t been good enough to stay ahead of the Brewers, an organization that develops pitching internally, drafts certain types of position players, executes forward-looking trades and creates a unique environment that’s hard to replicate.“They never give up,” Boyd said. “They play all facets of baseball very well. They play good defense. They control the running game. They’re in the strike zone. They control the strike zone at the plate, offensively, as well. That’s why the Central has run through them over the past few years. They’re a very good ballclub, top to bottom.”