Brewers, Dodgers win division tiebreakers
Christian
CHICAGO — Yelich’s easy smile a nd 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 — Colo- rado or the Cubs — starting Thursday in the best-of-five Division Series.
Chicago stays at Wrigley for tonight’s wild-card game against the Rockies, who lost in a second tiebreaker to the Los Angeles Dodgers for the NL West title Monday.
It’s a quick turnaround for the Cubs after falling short in
their bid for a third straight division title, but they will have ace left-hander Jon Lester on the mound for the elimination game.
“We’ll be ready. This team has responded all year,” said Anthony Rizzo, who hom- ered for Chicago’s run.
Yelich singled home Mil- waukee’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 — Colorado’s Nolan Arenado homered in the Rockies’ loss later Monday to finish with 38. The tiebreakers were game 163 of the regular season and 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.
Orlando Arcia, batting in the eighth slot, had a career- high four hits, and Josh Hader
closed out another domi- nant relief performance for
the Brewers.
Jose Quintana pitched six- hit ball into the sixth inning and Anthony Rizzo hom- ered, but Chicago’s bullpen faltered at a key moment.
Daniel Murphy and Baez had the only other hits for the Cubs.
The game was tied at 1 before Milwaukee opened the eighth with three straight hits. Arcia singled on an 0-2 pitch from Justin Wilson (4-5), Domingo Santana had a pinch-hit double and Cain greeted Steve Cishek with a single back up the middle. After Yelich struck out
swinging, Ryan Braun got the Brewers an insurance
run with a run-scoring single to center.
It was more than enough for Milwaukee’s vaunted bullpen.
Corey Knebel (4-3) extended his scoreless streak to 16⅓ innings with a perfect seventh, and Hader worked two innings for his 12th save.
Dodgers 5, Rockies 2:
Rookie Walker Buehler tossed one-hit ball into the seventh inning, Cody Bellinger and Max Muncy launched two-run homers, and Los Angeles beat visiting Colorado in a tiebreaker to earn their record sixth consecutive NL West title.
The defending NL champion Dodgers became the first major league team to win six straight division crowns since the Yankees captured
nine AL East titles in a row from 1998-2006. Los Angeles now hosts Atlanta in the best-of-five NL Division Series beginning Thursday.
Denied their first division title in franchise history, the Rockies head to Wrigley Field to play the Chicago Cubs in the NL wild-card game tonight.
Pitching in 90-degree heat, Buehler was oh-so-cool in closing out a regular season that ended with Game 163 after both teams had identical records of 91-71. He settled in quickly, retiring his first six batters in a row, and never did allow a
run. Buehler (8-5) had his no-hit bid broken up in the sixth by Charlie Blackmon’s single, one of his two hits for the Rockies.
Buehler even helped himself offensively, hitting a single in the sixth for his first professional RBI and extending the Dodgers’ lead to 5-0.
Despite posting the best road record in franchise history (44-38), the Rockies couldn’t get untracked. They didn’t advance a runner past second base until the ninth when Nolan Arenado and Trevor Story homered back-to-back off closer Kenley Jansen. Jansen then retired the next three batters in a row.