The crowd of 41,362 cheered loudly when Hunter Pence’s two-run homer in the first inning against the Cardinals was shown on the video board in left field.
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While the Chicago Cubs made a decision to delay their party Thursday night, their long-downtrodden fans were ready to celebrate.
Worst-case scenario? The Cubs lose to the Brewers and the St. Louis Cardinals lose to the San Francisco Giants later that night, meaning the Cubs would get the clincher around midnight Chicago time when fans would be deep asleep after a disappointing loss. But the final out in San Francisco touched off a celebration in Chicago that included honking horns and chanting in the streets.
The Toronto Blue Jays claimed a 7-2 win over the Los Angeles Angels, the Pittsburgh Pirates crushed the Philadelphia Phillies 15-2, the Chicago White Sox got past the Cleveland Indians 2-1 and the Minnesota Twins beat the Detroit Tigers 5-1.
“We have much larger baseball fish to fry in our skillet”, manager Joe Maddon told the Chicago Tribune. The Cubs last won the World Series in 1908.
Indeed, the NL Central crown is not how this group of Cubs will be judged, not this year. The Cubs did not stick around the clubhouse and instead will celebrate after playing the second contest of their four-game series Friday afternoon. “We really do”, president of baseball operations Theo Epstein said before the Cubs’ loss. “It kind of all boils down to how you perform in October”.
It marks the first time the Cubs have won a division title since 2008.
Can they finally win the World Series? Jason Heyward greeted Thornburg with a two-out double to right that drove in Ben Zobrist to cut the deficit to 5-4.
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“I was just trying to put the ball in play”, Gennett said. “But there are never favourites in October the same way there are in the regular season”.
