Cubs riding high in NL, welcome runs-hungry Royals

After posting a series win to begin the second half of the regular season, the Chicago Cubs take a share of the National League's best record into an interleague series with the visiting Kansas City Royals on Monday.

Chicago (59-40) had its four-game winning streak snapped on Sunday in a 6-1 home setback to the Boston Red Sox but has won consecutive three-game series against a pair of potential postseason teams in the New York Yankees and Red Sox.

The Milwaukee Brewers also are 59-40 to share the view from atop the NL Central.

"I think this group really believes in itself and believes in all of the guys in the room," Cubs left fielder Ian Happ said. "I think you saw that just in the way we played this series. I think we really played solid, fundamental baseball the whole time, and even though the game (Sunday) got away from us a little bit, it could have been the other way around on a few swings of the bat."

The Cubs will elect to throw a bullpen game on Monday and start reliever Ryan Brasier (0-0, 1.04 ERA) before presumably reaching deeper into the 'pen. Brasier has made 18 relief appearances in his first season with Chicago, striking out 14 batters and walking three in 17 1/3 innings. Of Brasier's 315 career outings, just five have come as a starter, including four with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2024.

Brasier has allowed one run in 6 1/3 frames for a 1.42 ERA in six career appearances against the Royals.

Kansas City will begin its fifth consecutive interleague series in Chicago on Monday. The Royals have dropped four of their last six games but salvaged a series in Miami on Sunday with a 7-4 victory against the Marlins.

In a disappointing year for Kansas City -- which sits 5 1/2 games out of the final American League wild-card spot -- the club's 343 runs rank last in the AL and are ahead of only the Pittsburgh Pirates' 333 in the majors. The Royals did score seven runs in two of their three games in Miami, including in their 7-4 win on Sunday.

The team's saving grace has been its pitching staff, which ranks second in baseball with a 3.49 ERA. Helping boost that number is rookie Noah Cameron (3-4, 2.31), who will make his 13th start of the year on Monday.

Cameron, 26, has allowed two earned runs or fewer in three straight starts. Last time out, the left-hander struck out eight batters in 6 2/3 scoreless innings in a no-decision against the New York Mets on July 13. Kansas City won 3-2.

"It was a good day," Cameron said after his last start. "Obviously, when you can command the ball and they are getting bad swings on stuff and I get really good defense behind me, it was an easy day."

A seventh-round pick by the Royals in 2021, Cameron will face the Cubs for the first time in his young major league career. Kansas City will look for its first series win over Chicago since sweeping the Cubs in August 2021.

--Field Level Media