The National League Central enters the second half with the first-place Cubs and last-place Cincinnati separated by just 4 1/2 games, an outlier during an otherwise yawn-inducing first half in which five divisions reached the All-Star break with at least a 5 1/2-game gap between first and second.
There are no front-runners in the NL Central. No room to breathe either, something Maddon saw coming long ago.
“I’ve been talking about this for the last two years how teams are getting better in our division,” Maddon said. “It’s not going to go away. It’s going to be really difficult to really separate, especially by the fact that everybody is catching up right now. The second half is going to be very similar to what you’ve seen in the first half.”
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