Party Time is Over as Cubs Try To Get Locked Back in After Clinching Division

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This felt more like spring training on Monday night at Wrigley Field than a pennant race. No buzz during batting practice, almost a celebrity-free zone around the dugouts, 84 degrees at first pitch and a last-place Cincinnati Reds team waiting for the future.

The NFL is king – or why Major League Baseball’s TV partners will be rooting for the Cubs to make a World Series run – and even a bad Bears team will command this city’s attention while getting destroyed by the Philadelphia Eagles on “Monday Night Football.”

But if it looked like the Cubs had fallen into a post-clinch lull, Addison Russell snapped them out of it in the seventh inning by blasting his 21st homer into the left-field bleachers, the 22-year-old shortstop nearly hitting the big video board. Two batters later, rookie Willson Contreras crushed a two-strike Tim Adelman changeup onto Waveland Avenue to tie the game 2-2, showing why the Cubs might make him their primary catcher in October.     

Chris Coghlan – a left-handed hitter on the playoff-roster bubble – next drilled a double into the right-field corner off reliever Blake Wood and scored the go-ahead run when Dexter Fowler lined a single up the middle.     

Just like that, the Cubs whipped together what became a 5-2 victory over the Reds in front of 39,251, surpassing the 3-million mark in attendance for the ninth time in franchise history and the first time since 2011. That win – combined with the Washington Nationals losing 4-3 to the Miami Marlins – made five the magic number to clinch the National League’s best record.

“We’re not done yet,” winning pitcher Jason Hammel said. “We still got to wrap up home-field advantage and continue to play good baseball. There’s really no reason to let up. I think the guys might have been a little tired from late festivities and whatever, having a fun time after the clinch. But it’s time to get locked mentally back in.”

Losing their edge? President of baseball operations Theo Epstein pointed out how the Cubs responded to the World Series-or-bust expectations coming out of spring training with a 25-6 burst out of the gate.

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And how the Cubs hit the reset button after losing 15 of their last 21 games before the All-Star break, winning series against the Texas Rangers and New York Mets to start a dominant second half. The Cubs haven’t experienced a three-game losing streak since early July.

“This isn’t the type of team that’s just going to roll over and stagnate and get too rusty,” Epstein said.

The offensive fireworks helped Hammel (3.56 ERA) become the rotation’s fourth 15-game winner – something the Cubs haven’t had since 1935 – and get another confidence boost with seven strong innings (even though it won’t change the calculus for the playoff rotation). The last team with four 15-game winners was the 2004 St. Louis Cardinals, who got swept by Epstein’s Boston Red Sox in the World Series.    

The Cubs have now put together their own “Band of Idiots” who want to be remembered forever.

“The way I look at it is there’s really no wrong choice,” Hammel said. “We’ve got 25 guys that are going to put up some wins for us. Whether it’s hitting, pitching, defense, we got a good collective group here and their decisions are going to be really hard, so we’re just going to continue to do what we do (and) then they’ll put the best team out there.

“I’m not trying out. I’m just doing what I do. You check your ego at the door. Whoever gets taken, gets taken and you cheer on from there.”

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