Surging Brewers defeat Cubs, win NL Central
Milwaukee gets top seed in postseason
CHICAGO — Christian Yelich’s easy smile and champagne-soaked T-shirt said it all.
A division title is much more fun than a Triple Crown.
Yelich collected three more hits as the Milwaukee Brewers won their first NL Central title since 2011, beating the Chicago Cubs 3-1 on Monday in a tiebreaker game. The silky-smooth slugger stalled in his bid for the league’s first Triple Crown in decades, but he starred once again as the Brew Crew captured the biggest prize of the day.
“I know how hard it is to get to this point and I’m proud to be a part of this group,” Yelich said as Milwaukee’s boozy party swirled around him, filling every inch of the cramped visitors’ clubhouse at Wrigley Field.
Lorenzo Cain hit a go-ahead single in the eighth inning to help Milwaukee to its eighth straight win and home-field advantage throughout the NL playoffs. The Brewers will host the wild-card winner starting Thursday in the best-of-five Division Series.
Chicago stays at Wrigley for Tuesday night’s wild-card game against Colorado. The Rockies
lost 5-2 to the Los Angeles Dodgers in Monday’s second tiebreaker for the NL West title.
“It’s no fun. Of course we’d prefer the other route,” manager Joe Maddon said.
It’s a quick turnaround after falling short in their bid for a third straight division title, but the Cubs will have ace left-hander Jon Lester on the mound for the elimination game today against Colorado.
“We’ll be ready. This team has responded all year,” said Anthony Rizzo, who homered.
Yelich singled home Milwaukee’s first run and won the NL batting title with a .326 average. He had 110 RBIs, one behind the Cubs’ Javier Baez, and finished with 36 home runs, two shy of Colorado’s Nolan Arenado. The tiebreakers were game 163 of the regular season and Arenado’s homer counted in the totals.
Joe Medwick in 1937 was the last NL player to win the Triple Crown. Miguel Cabrera did it for Detroit in 2012.
Milwaukee trailed Chicago by as many as five games in September, but manager Craig Counsell’s club pushed the season to an extra day with a furious finish and then used its deep lineup and bullpen to outlast the playoff-tested Cubs.
“It just shows the heart and the mentality that this team has,” Cain said. “Never give up. Continue to fight each and every day in each and every at-bat. We’re going to continue to do that in the playoffs.”
Orlando Arcia, batting in the eighth slot, had a career-high four hits, and Josh Hader closed out another dominant relief performance for the Brewers.
“All the guys in the ’pen, they’re attacking the zone and putting us in a good position to win ballgames,” Hader said.