CHICAGO — The Atlanta Braves remain Major League Baseball's best team with a little less than two months remaining in the regular season.
The Chicago Cubs have a pretty good case for the title of hottest team right now.
Cody Bellinger had his third straight multihit game, scored twice and drove in a run as the Cubs beat Atlanta 6-4 on Sunday for their sixth straight series win.
Dansby Swanson added a double and two RBIs against his former team, and Ian Happ drove in a pair of runs, helping the Cubs win for the 15th time in their last 19 games. Chicago (58-54) closed to within 1 1/2 games of the first-place Milwaukee Brewers in the National League Central Division standings.
In 23 games since the MLB All-Star break, the surging Cubs have scored 164 runs, the most in the majors. After losing 8-0 to Atlanta in Friday's series opener, they bounced back with a five-run first inning on the way to an 8-6 victory Saturday and carried the momentum over to the finale.
"The offense again, man, just relentless at-bats," Cubs manager David Ross said. "The walks fuel us a little bit, and getting guys on and creating traffic. Stealing a base here or there and putting the pressure on the defense and some timely hitting."
All-Star left-hander Justin Steele scuffled at times through 5 1/3 innings for the Cubs but won his fourth straight start on a misty day at Wrigley Field. Mike Tauchman had two hits, scored two runs and threw out Ronald Acuña Jr. at the plate from right field in the fifth to limit an Atlanta rally.
"The National League is kind of running through the Braves right now," Tauchman said. "It's evidence that if we execute the way that we can ... we can compete with anybody."
The Braves (70-39) have a 10 1/2-game lead over the second-place Philadelphia Phillies in the NL East, where Atlanta is the five-time reigning division champion.
Atlanta's Matt Olson hit his NL-leading 39th home run of the season, a monster 453-foot blast to the top of the bleachers beyond right-center field, and finished with three RBIs. Ozzie Albies had three hits for the Braves, including a double, while Acuña and Olson each had two hits.
Olson launched his third homer in four games and sixth in seven. He's second in the majors in homers this year, trailing only the American League's Shohei Ohtani, who has 40 for the Los Angeles Angeles
Bellinger is 13-for-31 (.419) during an eight-game hitting streak and has raised his season batting average to .326 from .271 on June 15, when he returned from a bone bruise on his knee.
Steele (13-3) allowed four runs, three earned, and eight hits while striking out seven and walking four. He was replaced by Michael Fulmer with the bases loaded in the sixth and Chicago ahead 5-3. Fulmer hit Acuña to force in a run, then struck out Albies and Austin Riley to end the rally and preserve a 5-4 lead for Chicago.
In total, four Chicago relievers allowed just two hits, with Adbert Alzolay earning his 14th save of the season.
"It's a great ballclub over there," Steele said. "You kind of knew the task at hand. It was just one of those wins, and everybody kind of contributed."
Charlie Morton (10-10) lost his fourth straight start, allowing five runs and four hits with four walks and a hit batter in 4 1/3 innings.
"I don't think there's any excuses other than we just didn't play good," Braves manager Brian Snitker said. "We ran up against a hot team. They're swinging the bats rally good. Their bullpen has been really good."
Olson's two-run drive in the third put Atlanta ahead. The Cubs tied it at 2 in the bottom half with just one hit, when Morton walked three batters and hit another.
Atlanta took a 3-2 lead in in the fifth on Olson's RBI single. Chicago answered with three runs in the bottom half, scoring on Happ's single, Bellinger's double and Jeimer Cadelario's single. Atlanta cut it to 5-4 in the sixth, but Swanson doubled in Bellinger in the seventh to make it 6-4.
The Braves will continue an 11-game road trip Monday, when they begin a four-game series against the Pittsburgh Pirates. The scheduled starting pitchers are Atlanta right-hander Spencer Strider (12-3, 3.61 ERA) and Pittsburgh right-hander Osvaldo Bido (2-2, 5.18).