The Milwaukee Brewers and Chicago Cubs resume their NLDS matchup on Monday after a rest day.
The pregame narrative: Milwaukee is a slight home favourite after securing a 9-3 blowout win in Saturday’s series opener. The Brewers are starting lefty opener Aaron Ashby to counter Shota Imanaga, and the water is muddied on who will get the ball afterwards.
Check out my +330 Cubs vs. Brewers predictions for Game 2, featuring prop bets on Andrew Vaughn and Michael Busch.
Cubs vs. Brewers predictions
Parlay: Brewers +1.5 | Vaughn over 1.5 bases | Busch 1+ hits (+390)
Brewers +1.5 (-265): Milwaukee finished with an MLB-best 97 wins this year thanks to elite pitching, strong defence, and consistent hitting.
It doesn’t faze me that we’re not sure who’s pitching after Ashby — if anything, I trust Pat Murphy to pull all the right levers.
One possible option is getting some length out of Quinn Priester (3.32 ERA, 1.24 WHIP). The righty had an opener in five of his outings this year, and Milwaukee went 4-1 in those games.
On the other end is Imanaga, who had a pretty rough end to the season.
The southpaw posted a 6.51 ERA in September, and Chicago failed to cover a -1.5 run line in all five of those starts.
Imanaga also gave up two earned runs in 4.0 innings in his first playoff start against the San Diego Padres, a game Chicago lost 3-0.
The Brewers are 53-29 at home this year; banking a run with them seems safe to me.
MLB SGP legs
Vaughn over 1.5 bases (+125): Vaughn must be thanking some higher power daily that he was traded from the Chicago White Sox.
The fifth-year outfielder broke out after joining the Brewers, posting a .308/.375/.493 slash line in 64 regular season games.
In that span, he generated 1.3 bWAR. In 610 games with the White Sox, he had -0.6 bWAR.
Vaughn has tormented lefties as a Brewer, batting .403 with a 1.064 OPS. He’s also 3-for-7 against Imanaga with a .516 xSLG.
Busch 1+ hits (-162): Putting Busch in this parlay more than doubles the price from +175 to +390. That seems like a steal to me given the circumstances.
The Cubs’ leadoff man is a free swinger — to a fault sometimes — with a solid batted ball profile.
He ranks in the 74th percentile or higher in xBA (.275), xSLG (.569), barrel rate (17.1%), and hard-hit rate (47.3%).
Batting from the left side, he has pretty severe lefty-righty splits. He’s 0-4 against Ashby and will probably go down in the first inning, but after that, I like our chances.
Busch is 4-for-10 against Priester and is hitting .357 through four playoff games.
Cubs vs. Brewers predictions as of 12:25 p.m. on 10/06/2025.
Avery joined NorthStar Gaming as an intern in 2022 before stepping into a full-time role soon after. He loves betting on and analyzing golf — mainly because it’s easier than actually playing — but is a fan of all sports, from the NFL to the UFC.