Either a Cubs win on Thursday against the visiting Milwaukee Brewers or a Cardinals loss against the Giants in San Francisco would clinch the division for Chicago.
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Manager Joe Maddon and the players were long gone from Wrigley by the time the Giants finished off the Cardinals. “We have much larger baseball fish to fry in our skillet”.
The Cubs (93-53) were hoping to begin a 10-game homestand with a boozy celebration of their first division title since 2008, and after Thursday’s loss, that party seemed destined for postponement.
Even as the impromptu party got started, history-minded fans wouldn’t let themselves get too overjoyed, realizing the very hard road ahead.
“When you really look at how young players perform, I know you guys probably roll your eyes when we said it wasn’t linear a million times”, general manager Jed Hoyer said.
And, no, the Cubs really didn’t back into the division title. But Keon Broxton homered and Orlando Arcia drove in two runs for Milwaukee, making the Cubs wait for the result of St. Louis’ game at San Francisco to find out if their season-long dominance of the Central was complete.
The Cubs took claim to the division despite losing 5-4 to the Milwaukee Brewers. They had not won a game this season at Wrigley Field in six previous tries and starting pitcher Jimmy Nelson never had beaten the Cubs (0-6, 3.59 earned run average in 11 previous starts). Scooter Gennett delivered a tiebreaking, two-run double in the seventh to delay the Cubbies’ celebration by about two hours. That’s about as close as I can imagine it’s like (to pitch in the playoffs).
With one out in the seventh, Ramos hit his 21st home run far over the center-field fence on the first pitch from Fernando Salas (0-1). If Noah Syndergaard, Jacob deGrom and Bartolo Colon lead NY to three wins in a five-game series, does that make the Cubs failures, or does it mean that the best team doesn’t always win in baseball? “There will be champagne on the field, partying like they do after every win”.
The Blue Jays caught up to the O’s by riding Russell Martin’s three-run homer and four RBIs to a 7-2 victory against the Angels.
“It’s really privilege to be here”, Maddon said. The Cubs aren’t wasting any time.
The Jets had a 100-yard rusher and a pair of 100-yard receivers as they beat Buffalo for the first time in their last six meetings. Carlos Sanchez supplied a walk-off single in the bottom of the ninth to lift the White Sox past the Indians 2-1.
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Baltimore took two of three in the series to pull a game ahead of slumping Toronto for the top AL wild card. Detroit came into the series with a 10-2 record against the Twins. He’s posted a solid ERA of 3.21, while allowing only sixty-nine runs through 193.2 innings pitched thus far. He might have seven losses at starting pitcher this year, but his earned run average is an incredible 2.07 while the next best era in the Major League Baseball is a 2.48.
