But that they did it in the NL Central means they did it while also playing a disproportionately large number of their games against the two other clubs with the best records in baseball, including the 100-win Cardinals, due to the league’s unbalanced schedules.
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The Chicago Cubs followed the lead of their ace Jake Arrieta Wednesday night, eliminating the Pittsburgh Pirates in the National League Wild Card Game.
For the Cubs, who have not won the World Series since 1908 – the longest drought in North American professional sports – their next opponents will be the St. Louis Cardinals, who they meet in a best-of-five division series, starting Friday.
Chicago will now look to take down the Cardinals, who have defeated the Cubs in 11 of their 19 matchups this season.
I will say it again. “This atmosphere, the energy, it was unbelievable”. Tried to use it to the best of my ability.
In the top of the first, catcher Kyle Schwarber dumped a single into left field. But the record PNC Park crowd of 40,889 booed anyway. Maddon will be tasked with leading the franchise to their first NLDS win since 2003 – the year Steve Bartman interfered with Moises Alou in Game 6 of the NLCS against the Florida Marlins. It is tremendous for the city. But Arrieta also made sure to preach his innocence – saying he never threw at the Pirates intentionally – and said everybody got caught up in the heat of the moment. “Chicago’s been waiting for this, but it’s only step one”.
For the second successive year, the Pirates had to take their chances in a one-off Wild Card game. Wednesday, like Madison Bumgarner in 2014, Arrieta pitched a shutout, allowing four hits and no walks and striking out 11.
“Sometimes you draw a tough bull”, Pirates manager Clint Hurdle said.
The bar erupted, the jukebox played Steve Goodman’s cheery “Go Cubs, Go” – the go-to victory anthem at Wrigley – and nearly everyone seemed to be singing along. Rodriguez, who started for defensive purposes at first base but was quickly replaced by Pedro Alvarez for offense, later beat up a Gatorade cooler with a flurry of punches.
The bearded, 29-year-old Arrieta, unbeaten since July25, stretched his remarkable second half – in which he posted an 0.75 ERA – into the opening round of the postseason.
Whether intentional or not, those drew the ire of the Pirates, and reliever Tony Watson retaliated by plunking Arrieta in the hip in the seventh. With the bases loaded and one out, cleanup hitter Starling Marte ripped a hard grounder toward shortstop Addison Russell. A toss to second and a throw to first later to complete the double play, and Arrieta and the rest of his teammates were pumping their fist on the way back to the dugout.
“Jake told me when we talked last night, he said: ‘You give me a few runs, I’m good, ‘” Fowler said. Arrieta had hit two Pirates, but there did not appear to be intent: Besides the elimination game factor, he hit Cervelli in the hand and Harrison with a breaking ball. The media demands on him are more than any other Pirates player, and the realization that it might be his last media scrum weighed heavily on the scene.
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The Cubs know what anybody paying attention should figure out: They are as good as anybody in this postseason bracket. Rodriguez had been pulled from the game in the 3rd inning and got right in the middle of the scuffle and completely lost his head, to the point that he was ejected and needed to be restrained by his teammates.
