(670 The Score) Behind a strong stretch of winning baseball, the Cubs have climbed back up the NL Central standings and are within striking distance of first place.
The Cubs (37-39) have a 13-8 record in June, which included a run in which they won 11 of 13 games. The Cubs are three games back of the first-place Brewers as they open a three-game series against the Phillies on Tuesday evening at Wrigley Field, and manager David Ross believes the NL Central crown is there for the taking.
"We've felt that way for a long time," Ross said on the Bernstein & Holmes Show on Tuesday afternoon. "When you get off out of spring training and you look at the talent on our team, you definitely look and identify, 'OK, we can be in the mix for this.' Before the season started, you look at St. Louis and think that's probably a more talented team on paper, and they haven't played up to their caliber of baseball I'm sure they expected. And I think we've went through some times where we haven't played our best baseball. But what I think most of us continue to press and look at is that it is a long season and you're going to go through those months where it's going to be a bad month, and we've had one of those. We had a good month to start. This is another three-week stretch where we're playing some really good baseball.
"The division is well in reach right now, and we still got a long way to go. We got to continue to still play good baseball. This 13-game stretch before the All-Star break is extremely important for us."
After hosting the Phillies for three games, the Cubs will welcome in the Guardians for a three-game weekend series, then close out the first half with four road games against the Brewers and three road games against the Yankees.
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