Before Wednesday night’s game at Wrigley Field, I asked Milwaukee Brewers outfielder Christian Yelich whatever happened to the “L” flag the team posed with after beating the Chicago Cubs in last year’s National League Division Series.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t even know who was holding it, honestly. I remember seeing it in the picture, obviously.”
So you were just an innocent bystander?
“I was just there, yeah,” he said.
Yeah, sure.
“Yeah,” he said with a laugh.
The “L” flag episode was a chapter in Cubs-Brewers history that will be remembered for years. Brewers reliever Trevor Megill got the flag — which symbolizes a Cubs loss — from a Brewers fan in the stands and brought it out to the field for the team photo. Some Cubs fans took it as a harmless gesture by a team trolling its archrival, while some in the Cubs hierarchy considered it a low blow.
Yelich had nothing to do with it but defended the move.
“I think it was just part of the culmination of an emotional series with a lot on the line,” he said. “Two teams that have gone at it for quite some time. Two fan bases that continue to go at it. I thought it was a really well-played series, and we were fortunate to come out on top.”
The Cubs entered the 2026 season as consensus favorites to topple the Brewers in the National League Central and were 5½ games ahead after their second 10-game winning streak left them with a 27-12 record on May 8.
Photos: Milwaukee Brewers 5, Chicago Cubs 0 at Wrigley Field
But after Wednesday’s 5-0 loss to the Brewers at Wrigley, where the Cubs were swept and outscored 19-5 in the three games. The Brewers suddenly have a 1½-game lead. As the “L” flag flew from the Wrigley flagpole, the Cubs were back to chasing their old rivals, searching for answers over a meltdown no one saw coming.
Two months into the season, the Cubs already have run the gamut of emotions, going from dominant to docile in the blink of an eye.
“Things happen, and we’ve got to move on from them,” manager Craig Counsell said.
Counsell was specifically referring to Pete Crow-Armstrong’s three-base error that the Gold Glove center fielder turned into a three-run Little League home run by David Hamilton, giving the Brewers a 3-0 lead. Counsell was asked if the error, combined with a dropped fly by Crow-Armstrong on Tuesday and his incident with a harassing White Sox fan on Sunday on the South Side, gave him any concerns.
Counsell only addressed the fielding miscues, ignoring the obvious.
But for anyone watching the Cubs the last three years, the sight of Crow-Armstrong botching two routine plays was alarming, to say the least. The unforced errors led to speculation that Sunday’s incident, in which his vulgar remark to a female Sox fan led to a $5,000 fine from MLB, was still circling around in his head.
Crow-Armstrong was somewhat defiant when addressing that matter Monday and seemingly morose Wednesday while addressing the fielding miscues, calling them “laughable” plays.
“Trying too hard and trying to make up for a lack of production I’ve given to this team and this city and not acting how I should,” he said. “I think anything physically usually starts mentally, and that’s what I’m showing everybody right now. Keep pushing, but that kind of stuff can’t happen.”
Crow-Armstrong has tried to curb his emotions this season after being criticized for throwing his helmet and bat after making outs, saying he didn’t want kids to copy that behavior. But it hasn’t helped him be more productive, and he’s still criticized for other matters.
“People have a lot of different opinions about that,” he said. “My emotion, I think, goes in a few different ways. The way I’ve been playing, I don’t think I deserve to … I mean, I haven’t contributed in any games to give people a chance to feel any sort of good way about what I’ve done out there.
“It’s up to me to turn that stuff around. Saving energy and not going in there and slamming a bunch of stuff and making a scene, I don’t think I’ve got that right (to do) right now.”
That’s the pickle Crow-Armstrong finds himself in. Be emotional and get ripped for it, or keep it bottled inside and not play with his usual self-confidence? No one said it was easy being labeled a superstar in Chicago.
Counsell said he would not sit Crow-Armstrong on Friday for the series opener against the Houston Astros, even though he gave breathers to Seiya Suzuki and Ian Happ after similar struggles the last two years.
Despite the defensive lapses, Crow-Armstrong remains an elite defender on a team that relies on its strong fielding. So it’s up to Counsell, and perhaps his teammates, to help snap him out of this self-created funk.
Maybe Bears quarterback Caleb Williams, a friend of his, can explain how he got through his first season in Chicago when everyone had a strong opinion on whether he would develop into a star. Remember the debate over whether Williams held onto the ball too long?
Third baseman Alex Bregman said Wednesday that he’s “gained a lot of respect” for Crow-Armstrong after playing alongside him and watching him prepare for games.
“I could care less about the results on the field,” Bregman said. “I care about how he goes about his business. He does it the right way.”
Crow-Armstrong, of course, is not the Cubs’ only problem, or even its biggest. He still leads the team with a 2.2 bWAR.
This Cubs team that averaged 6.2 runs per game and had an .846 OPS during its recent 20–3 stretch has averaged 2.8 runs with a .557 OPS while going 2-9 in its last 11. The lineup has been wasteful up and down.
Bregman said multiple times “the cream always rises to the top” in a 162-game season, which may be true. But Cubs fans are still waiting for him to start the rising part. He hasn’t lived up to his superstar status with an 0.8 bWAR after 49 games, which translates to a 2.6 WAR over a full season.
That’s below the 3.1 WAR that Matt Shaw posted last season as the starting third baseman. Bregman got a five-year, $175 million deal to replace Shaw, whose consistency has been affected by reduced playing time.
Also in the spotlight is Counsell, whose Cubs held a 6½-game lead over the Brewers on June 17th last year but were passed on July 21. The Cubs ended five games behind them, then lost 3-2 in the NLDS.
Now the Brew Crew has passed the Cubs again, and Cubs fans are praising manager Pat Murphy for doing more with less while questioning Counsell’s decision-making.
Murphy laughed at the suggestion Chicagoans credit him for the Brewers’ success.
“I thought there was a higher intelligence quotient, I guess,” he said before defending Counsell, his close friend, as “terrific in every sense of the word.”
Yelich agreed with that and said both Murphy and Counsell are at the top of the managerial food chain.
The Cubs and Brewers have 11 more games against each other, including a three-game series starting June 26 in Milwaukee, where the “L” flags will be flying again.
In Year Three of the Counsell-Murphy rivalry, will Brewers fans’ contempt for Counsell finally die down?
“Probably, eventually,” Yelich said. “When? I don’t know. Not anytime soon. The further you’re removed from anything, emotions always seem to subside after some time. But it’s going to be a while for sure.”
The Brewers have the upper hand now, but a lot can happen in a month.
Just ask the Cubs.
