The Chicago Cubs’ window for winning another championship will almost certainly close at the end of this season.

Third baseman Kris Bryant, shortstop Javier Baez and first baseman Anthony Rizzo – the Nos. 2-4 hitters in the batting order – are all eligible for free agency in November.

President of baseball operations Jed Hoyer has admitted the Cubs have no chance of re-signing all three. Hoyer’s hands are tied from a financial standpoint after owner Tom Ricketts claimed the Cubs had losses of “biblical proportions” in 2020 when fans were unable to attend games during the pandemic-shortened season.

Throw in the Cubs trading ace pitcher Yu Darvish to the San Diego Padres in December in a deal that was primarily a salary dump, and it was easy to wonder coming into the season if that window might have already closed.

The skeptics felt the loss of Darvish, who finished second in the National League Cy Young Award voting last season, and the potential distractions caused by the pending free agency of the three stars might crush the Cubs’ title hopes.

Yet the season is nearly two months old, and the Cubs are right near the top of the National League Central standings. Chicago raised its record to 27-21 following its three-game road sweep of the Pittsburgh Pirates on Thursday and are just ½ game behind the first-place St. Louis Cardinals.

The Cubs have won four games in a row, six of their last seven and nine of their last 12. They have gone 16-7 in May – all seven losses have been by one run – following an April in which they were 11-15.

“We’ve got a lot of good veterans on this team that understand what it’s like to come to work every day and compete and I think they’ve blocked out a lot of noise over the years, including the expectations they built early on of winning a World Series and accomplishing that,” manager David Ross said. “They continue to hear outside noise a lot of what they should be and what they shouldn’t be.

“They really do a good job of coming to work every day, trying to get better and being there for one another. They understand they can only control what they do on the field and all the other stuff doesn’t matter.”

Bryant and Baez have done a good job of insulating themsevles from speculation surrounding their futures and are setting themselves up for big paydays. Bryant is hitting .320 with 11 home runs in 47 games. Baez has a .255 batting average with 11 homers and seven stolen bases in 46 games.

Viewed as the most likely of the Big Three to be re-signed, Rizzo is having a decent season with a .258 average and five homers in 44 games.

The key to the Cubs’ recent surge, though, has been their well-rounded play.

“We can beat you in a lot of different ways,” right-hander Jake Arrieta said. “We can beat you with pitching, and the bullpen has been lights out, and we can score runs. We don’t have to rely on one or two guys to carry us. We have a well-balanced team.”

The rotation has a 3.08 ERA in the last 11 games with 51 strikeouts and 10 walks. In that same span, the bullpen has allowed only one unearned run in 34 2/3 innings.

“I think a lot of people tend to focus on the offense because of the players we have in our lineup who have won championships, but our pitching has really rounded into form,” Ross said. “The rotation has really righted the ship and been the version we expected them to be and the version they expected themselves to be at the start of the season and the bullpen has been great.”

None of the starters are having All-Star type seasons as Arrieta and right-hander Kyle Hendricks both have 5-4 records. Arrieta’s ERA is 4.37 and Hendricks’ is 4.63.

Closer Craig Kimbrel has converted 11 of 13 save opportunities while posting a sparkling 0.86 ERA in 21 games. It has been quite a renaissance for Kimbrel, who ranks 11^th in major league history with 359 career saves but had an ERA of 6.00 in his first two seasons with the Cubs.

“Right now, we’ve got a good gameplan, a good mentality and we’re attacking guys and getting them in swing mode,” Kimbrel said of himself and the bullpen in general.

As infielder David Bote points out, there are still four months remaining in the season and the Cubs “have to just think about playing good baseball every day” rather than the potential end of an era.

The Cubs’ playoff window opened in 2015 and they’ve been to the postseason in five of the last six years while winning three division titles. However, they have not been back to the World Series since 2016 when they beat the Cleveland Indians in seven games and ended a title drought that stretched back to 1908.

The Cubs talked openly of building a dynasty in the wake of that championship. While that hasn’t happened and president of baseball operations Theo Epstein and manager Joe Maddon have left Chicago along the way, it is looking the Cubs might be ready to take one final run at winning it all.