Chourio's Late Hit and Catch Lift Brewers Over Cubs 4-3

Jackson Chourio's go-ahead eighth-inning single and game-ending sliding catch gave Milwaukee a 4-3 Labor Day win over the Cubs and the season series.

Milwaukee beat the Chicago Cubs 4-3 on Monday at American Family Field, where a Labor Day crowd of 42,368 watched a back-and-forth thriller. With the score 2-1 Cubs in the eighth, Garrett Mitchell walked off Matthew Boyd and Joey Ortiz doubled him out of the game. Reliever Ryan Zeferjahn got ahead of Jackson Chourio 1-2 before the 22-year-old punched a sinker through the drawn-in infield for a two-run single and a 3-2 lead. Christian Yelich added a sacrifice fly, and Trevor Megill closed it out for his 27th save.

The ninth inning nearly unraveled the rally. Luis Lara, a rookie learning right field on the fly, leaped at the tricky right-field wall to rob Pedro Ramírez of a likely homer — a play that loomed enormous when Pete Crow-Armstrong followed with his 41st home run, the only one Megill has allowed in 55 1/3 innings this season. Had Lara not made the catch, per Reviewing the Brew, Crow-Armstrong's shot would have tied the game at 4-4. Chourio then ended it with a sliding catch of Seiya Suzuki's sinking line drive.

The win carried October weight. Milwaukee climbed eight games ahead of Chicago in the NL Central with 17 to play, and clinched the season series 7-4 — meaning the Brewers hold the tiebreaker should the Cubs mount a wild comeback, and any postseason rematch of the 2025 NLDS would open in Milwaukee. Brew Crew Ball notes the victory was Milwaukee's 89th and puts the magic number to clinch a fourth straight division title at 10 with just two head-to-head games remaining.

Chourio, only 22, has been one of Milwaukee's top postseason performers the past two years, and he embraced the spotlight again. "Sometimes I feel like I was born for those moments," he said. "I like the pressure that those moments bring." Mitchell told mlb.com that Chourio's inner confidence gets magnified when the lights are brightest, and manager Pat Murphy told Brew Crew Ball he is maturing as a hitter. Even Cubs manager Craig Counsell conceded his team did a lot right but had to do everything right to beat them.

It began as a pitching duel. Robert Gasser was sharp for four innings before trouble in the fifth — Pedro Ramírez's solo homer chased him two batters later — while Matthew Boyd held Milwaukee to one run over seven strong innings, per Reviewing the Brew. The Cubs took a 2-1 lead in the seventh when Pete Crow-Armstrong scored on an Alex Bregman single, per Brew Crew Ball. Counsell pushed Boyd back out for the eighth, and the decision backfired when Mitchell walked and Ortiz doubled before Chourio's decisive hit.

The rivals meet twice more in this series before closing head-to-head play, with the Cubs needing a near-miracle run to erase an eight-game deficit in 17 games. Yelich called the atmosphere the closest thing to the postseason before the postseason, and Megill set his sights beyond the season series, telling mlb.com the Brewers have "bigger ambitions." A potential October rematch of last year's five-game NLDS would now begin at American Family Field, where Monday's crowd got a preview of what that could feel like.