Streaking Chicago Cubs take Crosstown Cup with 6-3 win over White Sox

Things seem to be coming together at long last for the Chicago Cubs.

After they beat the White Sox on Wednesday night to take over first place in the National League Central, pitcher Jake Arrieta said the Cubs are "feeling it" and that he believed the defending world champions could remain in first place the rest of the season.

Manager Joe Maddon has been looking all year for the Cubs to go on a season-defining "run."

If you're the Cubs, you must feel that now is the time and Miller Park in Milwaukee is the place.

After defeating the White Sox 6-3 on Thursday at Guaranteed Rate Field, the Cubs (54-47) held a 1½-game lead over the second-place Brewers, who led the division by 5½ games at the all-star break. The Brewers are reeling, having been blasted 15-2 earlier Thursday in Washington.

The Brewers will host the Cubs in three showdown games this weekend.

For the Cubs, it's all there for them. They got a pair of homers and a triple Thursday from Kyle Schwarber, a homer by Anthony Rizzo and 7 strong innings from pitcher Jon Lester.

"It's about time for that," Maddon said. "We're playing on that level right now. We've got the Brewers coming up. I think the trap there is always to just think that if you say something like that and then don't do it that you'd be a failure. Not true. I just like the idea, and I'll stay with my mantra, of one game at a time. We happen to be in first place right now."

Schwarber, who has 17 homers, said time will tell if the Cubs are hitting that run.

"It's looking that way, but we can't be thinking about that at all," he said. "We just want to go out there and play some solid baseball. That's what we're doing right now."

The rebuilding Brewers have been a nice story so far. But the Cubs have something they don't: a winning pedigree, based on last year's World Series victory and the run to the NLCS in 2015. That could and should work in the Cubs' favor.

"I've got to believe so," Maddon said. "There's something to be said for learning how to win. It's such a non-defined, nebulous kind of term, but it's true when you get to that time of the year when you've done it before, I think the best way I can describe it is you believe in those close games, you're going to win them somehow.

"You believe when it gets tight toward the end of season, you're going to figure it out somehow. You probably are less, for lack of a better method, stressed in the moment. You're not jonesing to get there for the first time.

"All these things are part of learning how to win. Once you learn how to win, then that method kind of helps you toward the end of the year. I think our guys have learned how to win, and we have to press that the rest of the season.

"I get it. There's something to be said for that in all sports, not just in ours."

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