MILWAUKEE — It was the 23rd hour of the 29th day of the ninth month of the year when the 2023 Cubs’ championship dreams died an unofficial death.

Maybe a bit melodramatic, but we’ll go with it.

It was agonizing and yet not unexpected. Sudden and yet, perhaps, overdue.

Earlier, 500-some miles away at PNC Park in Pittsburgh, the Marlins rallied for a four-run eighth inning that would hold up in a 4-3 win against the Pirates.

Then, the Brewers beat the Cubs in 10 innings by a matching 4-3 score. The Cubs were unable to get a ghost runner home in the top of the frame off a pitcher, Caleb Boushley, who was making his big-league debut. It took one batter — Carlos Santana, who had a big night — for the Brewers to shoo Cubs off the field with their heads down in dejection. Santana led off and plated Blake Perkins with a liner into the corner in left off Jose Cuas.

How many painful ways are there to walk off the field a loser? The Cubs seemingly are trying them all.

And now it’s all over, isn’t it?

The Marlins took a 1½-game lead over the Cubs for the third and final National League wild-card spot, and it’s the Marlins who hold the head-to-head tiebreaker and have a 162nd game yet to complete — in New York against the Mets — should they need it.

In other words: Thanks for playing, Cubs. Maybe next year.