Fueled by two historic ten-game winning streaks, the North Siders surge to the top. Now, a high-stakes showdown in Atlanta offers the chance to secure National League dominance.
There is a new team in the No. 1 spot on MLB.com's latest power rankings.
That team is the Chicago Cubs.
The Cubs have slowly climbed up MLB.com's power rankings over the last few weeks. They came in at No. 13 on April 12, then moved up to No. 8 on April 19, were in the No. 4 spot on both April 26 and May 3, and now sit at the No. 1 spot at the start of May 11.
It’s not a surprise to see the North Siders in the top spot. They have been the hottest team in baseball over the past month, winning 20 of their last 25 games since April 14. During this stretch, the Cubs have had two separate 10-game winning streaks.
Here’s what MLB.com writer Will Leitch had to say about the Cubs being ranked No. 1.
“The Cubs have been freakishly hot, and it is pretty much unprecedented: They’re the first team since the 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers to have multiple distinct 10-plus-game winning streaks within their first 40 decisions of a season. That’s actively difficult to do! Now that they’ve lost a couple … we fully expect them to rattle off another 10-game streak in the next few weeks.”
The Cubs absolutely deserve to be ranked No. 1 on MLB.com’s latest power rankings. Two separate 10-game win streaks don't happen too often, let alone in the span of four weeks
Their first 10-game winning streak started on April 14 when they beat the Phillies by a score of 10-4 on the road. Chicago took another game from the Phillies on April 15 before sweeping the Mets and the Phillies in back-to-back series. The team then defeated the Dodgers on April 24 to get to 10 straight wins.
After losing three straight games to the Dodgers (twice) and Padres (once), the Cubs went on another 10-game winning streak. They beat the Padres twice, swept the Diamondbacks in a three-game series, swept the Reds in a four-game series, and won the first game of the series against the Texas Rangers on May 8.
The Cubs will enter this week with the third-best record in baseball. Their 27-14 record is only behind the Braves’ 28-13 record and the Rays’ 26-13 record.
But the North Siders have a prime opportunity in front of them to overtake the Braves for the best record in the National League this week. The top two teams in the NL will face off for a three-game series at Truist Park beginning on Tuesday.
The Cubs will then head to the South Side to take on the Chicago White Sox this weekend. The North Siders have won 10 of their last 11 meetings against the White Sox dating back to the 2023 season.