Through much of the first half of the 2017 season, the NL Central was mediocre. In fact, at times it was a bit of a laughingstock. This wasn't just at certain points in April or May, either.

Take June 28. The Cubs were sitting at .500 (39-39) and were only one game out. The Pirates were in fourth place with a 36-42 record, 9 1/2 games out of the second wild card. They were only four games out in the NL Central. The Brewers were the leaders at 41-39, even though they would have been 11 games out in the NL West and seven out in the NL East.

Again, that's a pretty laughable division right around the halfway point of the season.

It was at that time that the Brewers got hot. They would win 11 of their next 13 games, pushing themselves up to a 5 1/2 game lead in the Central. Through Saturday, they had actually tied the Rockies (holding the second NL wild card spot), meaning a wild-card race might actually be possible at some point.

The NL Central race seems to be where things could really get interesting, though, especially now that the Brewers have dropped three straight while the three teams behind them are winning.

As we head to July 19, the Brewers lead over the Cubs is down to 2 1/2. The Cardinals are within 4 1/2 and the Pirates five. Yes, there are four teams within five games of first.

Even if the Brewers don't play quite as well as they did for several stretches in the first half, it's pretty reasonable to believe they are in this thing for the long haul.

The Cubs are planning on being there as well and trading for Jose Quintana signals as much, not to mention how much talent is on the team -- with many of them starting to really wake up of late.

The Cardinals don't even like to say the word "rebuild" and they've won five of seven with the only two losses coming against the red-hot Pirates.

Ah, yes, the Pirates. They've now won nine of their last 11, taking two games each from the Brewers, Cubs and Cardinals. They have Starling Marte back and Andrew McCutchen "back" to his old self.

Could we maybe, please, possibly get a four-team race here? It seems possible.

Or maybe someone will run away with this thing. There are still more than two months left in the 2017 regular season. All we can do in mid-July is look ahead with hope and I'm hoping this NL Central race includes four teams down to the last month. If that happens, here is the number of times each of these head-to-head battles takes place in September:

Brewers-Cubs: 7

Cubs-Cardinals: 7

Brewers-Pirates: 6

Pirates-Cardinals: 6

Cubs-Pirates: 4

Brewers-Cardinals: 3

Now that would be some Central chaos. Of course, it would probably still be laughable as they jockeyed to see who could take the division with 84 wins or so.

C'mon, Baseball Gods. Make this happen.