Yelich surging towards winning NL's 1st Triple Crown in 81 years

Christian Yelich's blistering final week of the season has propelled his Milwaukee Brewers into a tie with the Chicago Cubs atop the NL Central after 161 games. It's also suddenly left him on the verge of making baseball history.

Yelich, who entered Saturday with a comfortable lead atop the NL batting average leaderboard, mashed another two homers in the Brewers' 6-5 win over the Detroit Tigers on Saturday night. In addition to his NL-best .324 average, Yelich is tied with the Cardinals' Matt Carpenter for the Senior Circuit home run lead with 36, while his 109 RBIs are two back of the Cubs' Javier Baez for first place.

It's all left Yelich in excellent position to become the NL's first Triple Crown winner in 81 years on Sunday.

Although Miguel Cabrera snapped baseball's 45-year stretch without a Triple Crown only six years ago - a feat that was received with great fanfare - the NL's been without its own trifecta winner for even longer. Hall of Famer Joe Medwick was the most recent NL Triple Crown winner, all the way back in 1937.

NL TRIPLE CROWN WINNERS

*Zimmerman's Triple Crown was only confirmed in 2015 by SABR

"It's not something you even dream about because it's a stupid dream," Yelich said of possibly winning the Triple Crown after Saturday's game, according to Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.

With the batting title all but sewn up, Yelich's Triple Crown chances will ultimately come down to the home run and RBI categories. He'll need to at least keep pace with both Baez and Carpenter in RBIs and homers respectively, as even holding a share of the league lead would be enough to earn him the prestigious honor.

Yelich may have a big-time ace up his sleeve in the form of the schedule. If the Cubs and Brewers finish Sunday tied atop the NL Central, they'll face off in a one-game playoff for the division title Monday that would count in the regular-season standings as Game 163 - and thus, would give Yelich an extra game to pad his potential Triple Crown-winning stat line.

The 26-year-old, who Milwaukee acquired from the Miami Marlins in January, enters Sunday's game sporting a .324/.400/.599 slash line along with his 36 homers, 109 RBIs, 34 doubles, and 21 stolen bases. In 25 games this month he's hit .360 with 18 extra-base hits and 33 RBIs.