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Home , 1908 World Series, 1945 World Series, Busch Stadium, Claude Passeau, Dexter Fowler, Jake Arrieta

October 8, 2015

Chicago Tribune Cubs' blanks Pirates, division series with Cardinals next By Mark Gonzales

They celebrated like wild fraternity brothers Wednesday night.

"We have a special group," rookie said after supporting Jake Arrieta's latest mastery with a two- homer and three RBIs. "We have great personalities and great leadership top to bottom."

From the strategy of to Arrieta's 11-, four- to offense and Schwarber provided, the Cubs celebrated in a raucous manner after quieting the Pirates 4-0 in the wild-card game.

"We're going to celebrate," President responded after being asked about facing the rival Cardinals in the best-of-five division series starting Friday in St. Louis. "We'll deal with the Cardinals on Thursday. It's a special rivalry. We've never played them in the postseason. It's going to be incredible."

For now, nothing tops the amazing ascent of the Cubs and Arrieta, a 22-game winner during the regular season who extended his scoreless streak to 31 . He hasn't allowed a run since the eighth of a Sept. 16 game against the Pirates.

A four-run cushion after 4 1/2 innings — thanks to Schwarber's three RBIs and Fowler's 3-for-3, three-run performance — was the perfect prescription for Arrieta and Maddon, who started Schwarber in right field for only the third time and batted Tommy La Stella fifth while starting him at third base for only the seventh time.

Although La Stella went 0-for-2, the early lead allowed Maddon to substitute wisely, with moving from left field to third and making two exceptional plays — including a backhanded stop on an Aramis Ramirez grounder to start an inning-ending play in the seventh.

"They're accountable to the moment," Maddon said of his rookies.

Bryant's play came after a series of tense moments. Arrieta hit Josh Harrison with a pitch in the sixth and committed an to load the bases. But Arrieta induced Starling Marte to ground into the inning-ending .

In the seventh, reliever hit Arrieta with a pitch. Arrieta knew he was going to get hit after nailing two Pirates hitters, but he exchanged words before the benches and bullpens formed a scrum near home plate.

Sean Rodriguez, who was lifted for a pinch hitter in the third, was one of the first Pirates players to leave the and was ejected.

"Sometimes those things happen," Arrieta said. "I have a tremendous amount of respect for those guys."

Arrieta had a quick reply when a reporter suggested his stuff wasn't as crisp as in recent starts.

"I'm not sure what game you're watching." said Arrieta, who had every intention of throwing a and finished with 113 pitches.

"I didn't want to see anyone in the bullpen. I wanted to finish what I started and be the guy to get the last out. That's the mindset."

Epstein was thrilled.

"Unbelievable," he said. "A 4-0 lead is misleading. There's a lot of drama in that game, a lot of tension, a lot of emotions. Jake had to find a second gear after all that drama."

And fantasy has become a reality for rookies like Schwarber, who admitted he was nervous Tuesday while watching the wild-card game.

"Crazy to think," said Schwarber, 23, the Cubs' first pick in the 2014 draft. "But it's crunch time, and we're ready for it."

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Chicago Tribune Expect plenty of drama and excitement in Cubs-Cardinals division series By Paul Sullivan

What are the most pressing questions as the Cubs-Cardinals series is set to begin?

Joe Maddon vs. Tony Soprano is probably about as good a marquee billing as you're going to see in October.

Maddon referred to the fictional mobster during a recent rant against the Cardinals at , wondering if Soprano "put out the hit" on Cubs , who was hit with a pitch in apparent retaliation for Dan Haren plunking in the helmet.

While he didn't name names, Maddon's target was obviously Cardinals manager Mike Matheny, a disciple of the -style of retribution.

Here are three pertinent questions about the Cardinals heading into the opener Friday of their best-of-five National League Division Series, the first postseason matchup between the archrivals.

Will Molina play?

The Cardinals revolve around , the many believe is the best of his generation who has been on nine playoff teams in his 12 seasons. Molina missed the last 13 games of the regular season with a torn ligament in his left thumb, but he was practicing with the team and wearing a splint on his catching hand.

The Cubs don't have much of a running game to test Molina, but they may have pinch-runner Quintin Berry to use if he's on the roster.

Molina had his worst offensive season since 2006, finishing with four home runs and a .660 OPS. But he has been known to hurt the Cubs at the most inopportune times and has a career average of .308 with 86 RBIs against them.

Who is the Cardinals' ace?

Adam Wainwright was the undisputed ace before going down in April and missing most of the season with an Achilles tear. He returned to the bullpen in September, but the rotation had managed fine without him. , who went 9-4 with a 1.93 ERA in 17 starts at Busch , will start Game 1 Friday at home.

"The numbers are good at home," Matheny told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "Not bad on the road (4-6, 3.82). He just has had a strong season."

Matheny did not name his starters after Game 1, though right-handers (17-7, 3.38 ERA) and (12-11, 3.03) and lefty Jaime Garcia (10-6, 2.43) likely will be used in some order.

The Cubs will counter with in Game 1, and the rest of the rotation is to be determined.

Which team is the hottest?

The Cardinals were the best team in baseball this year, winning 100 games despite a series of injuries to key players such as Wainwright, Matt Adams, Holliday and Molina. And they also went 11-8 against the Cubs, though the Cubs won four of their last six, taking two of three in each of their last two series in September, including the Maddon-Soprano game.

On July 27, the Cardinals had an 111/2-game lead over the Cubs on their way to their third straight division title and fifth straight playoff appearance.

But the Cubs went 46-21 the rest of the way, finishing only three games out of first. The Cardinals were shut out in their last three games against the Braves, and haven't scored a run in the month of October.

After being 40 games (86-46) above .500 on Sept. 2, they went 14-16 in their last 30 games. The Cubs finished with an eight-game winning streak before beating the Pirates in the wild-card game.

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Chicago Tribune Fearless Cubs quickly serve notice they're in this for the long haul By David Haugh

After squeezed the line drive for the final out in the Cubs' 4-0 victory Wednesday over the Pirates, teammates danced around the field like the kids they still are.

In the middle of the mania, first baseman Anthony Rizzo lifted Jake Arrieta and put the over his shoulder for a few steps of frolicking. The man who had carried the Cubs this far was getting a well-deserved ride.

"Three cheers for Jake Arrieta!" a voice in a jubilant Cubs clubhouse yelled.

Three collective claps later, bedlam ensued. Rookie star Kris Bryant sprayed champagne and President Theo Epstein chugged it as teammates hugged and music blared. The pleasure easily exceeded the pressure.

Some will call the celebration over the top for only one win, but Chicagoans know it represented so much more. The Cubs were the better team in a do-or-die situation in October and rose to the occasion in a playoff game. What a rare thing to say about the Cubs.

"I could not be more proud of a group of guys than I was tonight," manager Joe Maddon said.

On the same night the Blackhawks hoisted a Stanley Cup banner back in Chicago, the Cubs raised expectations along the Allegheny River. Before the first pitch of the wild-card game at PNC Park, the public-address announcer proclaimed to the crowd of 40,889, the ballpark's largest ever, "It's the beginning of Buc-tober!"

But calendars mean nothing to a Cubs team considered ahead of schedule and unwilling to wait till next year like so many others have.

Nobody epitomizes the Cubs' accelerated pace of development more than Kyle Schwarber, the fourth pick of the 2014 amateur draft and the first Cub who will come to mind in 10 years when you recall this night.

Schwarber's season began April 9 in Pearl, Miss., catching a Double-A game for the , and it peaked six months later at PNC Park, playing right field against the Pirates in the Cubs' most significant moment in years. Schwarber hit a two-run over the right-field wall, out of the ballpark and into Cubs lore.

With one swing of the bat, the 22-year-old who looks more like a Bears fullback turned the wild-card game into the Kyle Schwarber Game.

"I'm just thankful I'm here to help the team — this is a special group," Schwarber said. "It was a good feeling and came off solid. It was a big situation."

By the top of the third, thanks to the homer and his first-inning RBI single, it was Schwarber 3, Pirates 0. The lineup Maddon employed worked, of course. Everybody from the people in the Cubs dugout to those in Wrigleyville bars knew what that meant with Arrieta on the mound. The right-hander hadn't given up four runs in a game since June 16. Heck, Arrieta had let only four runs score total since Aug. 1.

Cubs Chairman Tom Ricketts wanted to shed the "Lovable Losers" label traditionally attached to the team, and rest assured this experience went a long way toward doing so. Every lusty boo aimed at Maddon during pregame introductions — which he invited by cupping his ear and tipping his cap — and every "ARR-I-ET-A!" chant illustrated how far the Cubs had come. Envy so often comes disguised as hate.

The animus boiled over in the seventh when reliever Tony Watson hit Arrieta in the buttocks, retaliation for Arrieta hitting two Pirates hitters. Benches cleared after Arrieta said something on his way to first base, with Pirates first baseman and Dexter Fowler leading the jawing. Once the committee meeting dressed as a baseball melee ended nonviolently, Rodriguez went all on the Gatorade cooler in the dugout because, he claimed, a Cubs player choked him.

For the record, the team that lost its composure and resorted to desperation in an elimination game was not the Cubs. The Cubs were the team that got inside the head of its opponent, not something that happens every October — or any October.

Arrieta elevated his game the way Chicago has come to expect during one of the most dominant extended stretches our city has seen, keeping historical company with guys such as Michael Jordan during the 1990s, in 1984 and Duncan Keith last spring.

Maddon compared Arrieta's performance to former Cardinals great — in terms of edginess too. When a reporter prefaced a postgame question by saying Arrieta didn't have his best stuff, he snapped, "I'm not sure what game you were watching."

Besides loading the bases in the sixth, Arrieta again resembled the most unhittable pitcher in baseball by giving up a measly four hits and striking out 11 against the second-best team in the majors. Yet perhaps Arrieta's most satisfying moment came on the basepaths after he stole second on the first pitch after the brawl, the perfect response and probably not easy to pull off while smirking.

A Pittsburgh TV station had circulated on its website instructions for fans to rattle Arrieta with chants by the inning. Nothing worked as Arrieta, who invited the abuse on Twitter, reacted as unfazed as ever. Counterpart paled in comparison.

The Cole reality: The Pirates ace didn't have it, giving up four runs in five innings, including two home runs he will think about until . He came in having yielded only one extra-base hit to the Cubs in four starts but struggled with his usual command, especially early when adrenaline appeared to affect his control.

After Dexter Fowler homered in the fifth, a chorus of "Let's go, Cubbies!" broke out in the seats behind the Cubs dugout as Pirates fans sat in silence, stunned. Fans dressed in black started flocking to the exits in the eighth. They knew what everybody now knows: The Cubs are talking and demanding to be taken seriously.

Maddon compared the play-in game to the Super Bowl, but truth is, as monumental as the moment felt, it merely represents the equivalent of the Hawks eliminating the Predators in the first round. Three series remain before anybody needs to worry about parade planning. But suddenly the Cubs look capable of making what once seemed wildly impossible possible.

Bring on the Cardinals. Alert the Mets and Dodgers. Make no small plans for early November, North Siders. Nothing fazes this Cubs team that fears nothing.

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Chicago Tribune Cubs take the Joe Maddon way to National League Division Series By Paul Sullivan

Trust is something an outsider has to earn in a parochial town like Chicago, but it didn't take long for everyone to start believing in the gospel of Joe.

From the day at last November when Joe Maddon told everyone he would be "talking playoffs" in 2015 through Wednesday's fist-clenching, pulse-pounding 4-0 triumph over the Pirates in the wild-card game, Cubs fans put their faith in his unconventional moves and watched them work like a metronome.

Even some die-hard White Sox fans are pulling for the Cubs to pull this off, including a former Chicagoan now working in Washington.

I sent a message to President asking if he would put his loyalties aside and pull for the Cubs this postseason.

The answer arrived before the game began.

"With the Sox out, I'll be rooting for the Cubs to win the Series," Obama said via email. "They're due. They've got great young players, and I'm a Maddon fan. That's an official statement."

If the Cubs do get to the World Series, don't be surprised if the president stops by Wrigley Field to catch a game, not that we're getting ahead of ourselves or anything.

The Cubs still have a long way to go, starting with the National League Division Series against the archrival Cardinals, which begins Friday evening at Busch Stadium.

"We'll be ready," Jake Arrieta said. "We're going to have two tough games in St. Louis. Hopefully we scratch out a win, hopefully two, and then take it to Wrigley and let the home crowd see us play."

The Cubs have taken on Maddon's personality, with further evidence being the seventh-inning brouhaha after reliever Tony Watson hit Jake Arrieta in apparent retaliation for two batters Arrieta hit.

"We don't start stuff, but we end stuff," Maddon said during a recent kerfuffle with the Cardinals.

His players heard those words. Now they live by them.

"I know people back in the day used to say getting into fights or whatever would bring your team closer," said , who was in the thick of the scrum. "I don't think we need to be any closer.

"Look around. Chemistry on this team is not any problem. Getting into a fight I don't think helps us. But it obviously doesn't hurt us. We're going to stand up for our guys, and we're going to make sure the other team knows we're going to stand up for our guys. If that means going on the field and taking care of business, that's what we have to do."

Of course, the last thing the Cubs needed was someone to get hurt in a fight.

"You always have concern," President Theo Epstein said. "But pretty quickly you could tell calmer heads would prevail. It was draining. It was emotional for those guys going through that. There was some real (stuff) going down there today."

And it all started with Maddon letting his players be themselves, a novel idea that brought out the personality of this team and turned it into a dominant force.

To envision this all happening without Maddon is impossible.

You can't quantify the number of victories a manager is responsible for, but the Cubs did make a 24-game regular- season improvement over last year.

The Cubs made the right move to fire , even though President Theo Epstein said it was a "moral dilemma" because Renteria had done nothing to lose his job.

Last October, when Epstein and general manager met Maddon at a trailer park in Pensacola, Fla., to offer him the job, Maddon looked at the talent in place and the ones on the tarmac waiting to take off.

"And then you look at it, and (you think), 'Man, this could be pretty good rather quickly,' " he said Wednesday. "In the end, having Jon (Lester) there really solidified it, and nobody thought Jake was going to be this good this year. I can understand why everyone thought why it was going to take a little while longer."

There's more work to do, more games to play and more moments to savor. But the gospel of Joe is spreading, to the White House and beyond.

"To see the hard work of all those people manifest itself in the young, exciting gutsy winning major-league team before our eyes is incredibly special," Epstein said. "And Joe and his staff and the players have taken it to a whole other level."

Maddon told his players not to let the pressure exceed the pleasure.

It did on Wednesday, and the pleasure was ours.

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Chicago Tribune Theo Epstein rewards baseball department for job well done By Paul Sullivan

Theo Epstein gets most of the credit for building the Cubs team that advanced to the National League Division Series with their wild-card win over the Pirates on Wednesday night.

As president of the baseball operations department, he made the personnel decisions and brought in the people who helped make the changes that resulted in this dream season.

But Epstein is the first to acknowledge the work of dozens of employees in the baseball operations department, the ones who scouted and developed the young talent, as well as the major league scouts who advised Epstein on the sign-and-flip veterans like Paul Maholm and , and pick-ups like Jake Arrieta and Dexter Fowler.

Now the Cubs are going to reward their baseball operations employees with a night at Wrigley Field.

“Watching this Cubs team play, what it means to be a Cub in 2015, I often think back to the long hours in those hotel rooms figuring out what it was we wanted to be, how we were going to get where, what we wanted to teach and all the different people who contributed to that in some small way, it’s really special for them,” Epstein said. “So we’ve actually invited all our full-time baseball operations staff, all the scouts and all our development people, when we host that first game at Wrigley, Game 3.

“They’ll all be there with their wives, which will be a really cool moment because they were all a part of it. Looking out on the product they helped create, a beautiful, fall evening at Wrigley Field would be pretty special.”

The Cubs would not be where they’re at without them. And while the kids were alright, the additions of veterans like Fowler, and David Ross were also instrumental in creating the proper clubhouse culture.

“I love numbers,” manager Joe Maddon said. “God, I love numbers, though I was horrible in math. Algebra III. Second semester of Algebra II was my Waterloo, to be honest with you. Algebra III and Trig could have been Latin or Greek, it wouldn't matter to me. But I do love numbers.

"Beyond that I really like people and humans and what makes this guy tick? And I don't think that because you can't necessarily quantify it, it's not as popular of a way to acquire a player, but it really matters. It really matters right now in our clubhouse. But I guess my point is it's a combination of skillful young players that everybody saw coming along. But I don't believe we would be here without the appropriate seasoning among the veterans.”

Some of Epstein’s special assistants were on hand Wednesday, including former Cubs and . Eddie Vedder was watching in a suite with Dempster when Dexter Fowler came up in the fifth. Dempster told Vedder that Fowler would homer, and Fowler promptly homered to make it 4-0.

“Dempster called it,” Vedder said. “It was the craziest thing.”

The Cubs had a long road the last four years to get to that one playoff win, and getting past the Cardinals will be even more difficult.

But the wild clubhouse celebration was merited, and Epstein and general manager Jed Hoyer could finally enjoy their first taste of October madness in Chicago.

Was there ever any time when they thought this rebuild wasn’t working out the way they’d hope?

“I don’t think there was ever a point of being totally frustrated,” Hoyer said. “I think the losses were really hard. There were a lot of frustrating nights, driving home together or walking home, it was tough. Losses are really hard, especially when you’re striving for an environment like Boston, where Theo was winning 90-95 games every year.”

Maddon’s “30-minute rule” for celebrating wins was extended on Wednesday, but when the Cubs wake up today in St. Louis they’ll be back at work, looking to extend a magical season.

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Chicago Tribune Ryan Dempster believes postseason experience huge for Cubs' future By Mark Gonzales

The experience of participating in Wednesday night's National League wild-card game should go a long way toward grooming the Cubs' prized rookies on bigger stages for the future.

That's the view of former Cubs pitcher Ryan Dempster, who pitched in three postseasons and now is a special assistant to general manager Jed Hoyer.

"If the season ends now or a month from now, these guys are going to just be better for it," Dempster said. "They're going to get experience, maybe a shot of adrenaline, because these are what the playoffs are about. How do you control the adrenaline? Whether you want to fight it or not, it comes. It creeps in there. So how do you control those emotions? What a great thing. This is so awesome.

"And expectations. It's like Christmas time when you ask for a pair of high-tops and you get the Air Jordans. You exceed expectations already.

"Everything on top is frosting. And they've proven they can compete with everybody throughout the year."

Martinez the manager: Manager Joe Maddon believes some team is going "to get lucky" if it hires his longtime bench , , as its manager.

Martinez has interviewed for openings with the Cubs, Nationals and Rays the last two seasons, and Maddon said he has given Martinez the same latitude that Mike Scioscia did for him with the Angels.

"He's really good at tough conversations," Maddon said. "He's very straightforward, and up front. That's really vital. You have to have those Godfather days, man, when sometimes you just have to be blunt and honest with somebody to get your point across. He has all that.

"I think by having done this for several years now, he really understands pitching. That's a big part of it."

Cubs pride: First baseman Anthony Rizzo said the playoff appearance resonated with former Cubs.

"We want to make them proud," Rizzo said. "They left the jersey a lot better when they were done playing.

"I know Ernie would be really proud of this team, , and it means a lot for them."

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Chicago Tribune Cubs set wild-card lineup: Kyle Schwarber in RF, Tommy La Stella at 3B By Mark Gonzales

Kyle Schwarber will start in right field and Tommy La Stella at third base Wednesday night as the face the in the National League wild-card game.

Kris Bryant, who normally plays third, will start in left field -- where Schwarber played for most of the final two months. Bryant has the range to cover the spacious area in left at PNC.

“Maybe on paper it would not be our best defensive lineup, but matching up against (Pirates ace) Gerrit Cole our best offensive lineup," Cubs manager Joe Maddon said.

Bryant is 3-for-9 lifetime against Cole. Schwarber is 1-for-5 and La Stella 1-for-6 against Cole, but the Cubs' lineup features a left-handed, right-handed alignment so the Pirates might be hard-pressed to leave a reliever in the game for more than one batter in a high-leverage situation.

Opening night shortstop Starlin Castro will start at second base. First baseman Anthony Rizzo and Castro are each 6-for-17 (.353) lifetime against Cole.

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Chicago Tribune 's off-balance approach earns spot on Cubs' wild-card roster By Mark Gonzales

After a miserable 2014 season with the and lasting only 2 1/2 months with the Braves before getting released, Trevor Cahill knew he had to regain his effectiveness in the minors to have any change of returning to the majors.

"I just wanted to go to a contender and go on a hot streak," Cahill said of his agreement to sign a minor league contract with the Chicago Cubs on Aug. 18 after being released by the Braves. "That was my goal. Fortunately, it worked out."

Cahill's decision couldn't have worked out any better. Thanks to the reliance of an off-speed pitch, Cahill landed a spot on the Chicago Cubs' National League wild-card roster.

"I think my off-speed stuff is better," said Cahill, who had a 2.12 ERA in 11 relief appearances with the Cubs after being promoted on Sept. 1. "It helps the (Cahill's signature pitch). I don’t have to be as fine with it. If you can throw three pitches for a strike in any count, (opposing hitters) can’t check off any pitches and look for one.

"It’s different coming out of the bullpen than starting, when you're trying to navigate lineups. (As a reliever), you come in and throw your best stuff and then you're out before you know it."

Cahill, a starter throughout his career, said he began to feel more comfortable when he pitched at -A Iowa.

"Instead of throwing hard just to get loose, you can back off and get a feel for your pitches. And then when you get in game, you let adrenaline take over. You stick to your strengths."

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Chicago Tribune Cubs carry on wild-card roster By Mark Gonzales

Kyle Hendricks hasn't made a relief appearance in his 45 major league games, but the Chicago Cubs included their fifth starter on their 25-man roster for Wednesday night's National League wild-card game against the Pittsburgh Pirates.

The Cubs will carry 10 pitchers and 15 position players on their roster. As expected, left-hander Jon Lester was on the roster to back up Jake Arrieta. But the addition of Hendricks is a surprise because of Arrieta's durability and the addition of Lester as insurance.

Neil Ramirez, who pitched a scoreless inning Sunday, was left off the roster. Ramirez missed most of this season because of a right shoulder injury.

Outfielders Quintin Berry and Austin Jackson, who didn't join the Cubs until Sept. 1, were included on the wild-card roster. Berry will serve as a pinch-runner.

Infielder Jonathan Herrera, who was on the roster for the entire season, was left off the wild-card roster.

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Chicago Sun-Times All-Central Division wild-card might be the start of a trend By Gordon Wittenmyer

PITTSBURGH – Was Wednesday night’s wild-card game in Pittsburgh a sneak preview of coming attractions in the the next few years?

Players on both sides of the fields seemed to think so on a night 195 combined victories added up to a single, loser- out playoff game.

“From my point of view, the best two teams in the long run for years to come are going to be the Cubs and the Pirates,” said Cubs catcher Miguel Montero of teams with two of the youngest, developing cores in the National League.

The Cubs started three rookies in their first playoff game in seven years, including the Nos. 2 and 3 hitters in their lineup – with that No. 2 hitter Kyle Schwarber driving in three runs in the first three innings with a single and two- run home run into the Alleghany River.

The Pirates had a second-year leadoff man in right field and the first overall pick of the 2011 draft pitching.

“Those two teams have so much potential; the Pirates have that core with [Starling] Marte, Polanco, [Andrew] McCutchen, and the pitching they’ve got. Those are good players, man.

“It’s going to be fun watching the next few years those series against the Pirates because it’s going to be two good teams,” said Montero, the Cub who came up with the WeAreGood hashtag and T-shirts. “For sure the Cubs are going to be in a lot of peoples’ ears in the next few years. Even this year they already are.”

And the 100-win Cardinals don’t appear to going anywhere either.

Even rookies such as Pirates Keon Broxton see the makings of an NL Central repeat of producing the top three teams in baseball – a major-league first this season.

“It’s going to be a battle for a while to come,” Broxton said. “Every year the division seems to get better and better, so it’s going to be scary.”

Here Today, Gone …

Maddon sounds like he’s bracing for the likelihood longtime bench coach Dave Martinez will be hired away as a manager somewhere this winter.

“He’s definitely ready to manage,” said Maddon, who said he took a cue from one his old managers, Mike Scioscia, about expecting his bench coach to approach each day like he was going to manage that day. “I want Davey to be the same way. When he comes to the ballpark every day, he walks in the door as though he’s going to manage the game.

“And there is a pretty good chance of it ,that I’m going to get kicked out, so he’s got to be ready to do it.”

The Padres, Nationals and Marlins all are shopping for managers this winter. Martinez interviewed in Washington the last time the Nats job opened.

“He understands the numbers; he understands people and tough conversations,” Maddon said. “He’s really good at tough conversations. He really understands pitching.

“He’s absolutely ready. Some team’s going to get lucky.”

Human Resources

As expected, Maddon went with hitting-first lineup that sacrificed some defense behind Jake Arrieta, who induces mostly weak contact, and few balls hit to third base – where contact hitter Tommy La Stella started.

Third baseman Kris Bryant was in left, with catcher/outfielder Kyle Schwarber in right.

“Maybe not on paper what would be our best defensive lineup, but matching against [Gerrit] Cole, our best offensive lineup,” said Maddon, who subbed in defenders in the middle and late innings after the Cubs took the lead. “Tommy is the most underrated hitter on our team. So we wanted to include him.”

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Chicago Sun-Times Schwarber settles down, gives Arrieta more than enough By Daryl Van Schouwen

PITTSBURGH – It hit Kyle Schwarber — the magnitude of what he was about to experience — the night before.

The American League Wild Card game between the Yankees and Astros was on TV, and when Schwarber tuned in to watch, he admitted he was more than a little anxious.

“The nerves really hit last night watching that game because I realized that was going to be us,” Schwarber said, “and in less than 24 hours. Then going to the ballpark there are butterflies, and listening to the national anthem and listening to the crowd roar …’’

More butterflies.

But once the game began, the game “slowed down” for Schwarber, which is athlete-speak for not being overrun by a big crowd, high stakes, national television and everything else.

“Once that first pitch happens it’s game time,’’ Schwarber said. “It’s time to go and everything starts to slow down. You feel so sped up when you’re spectating and once you step on the field, you slow down.’’

About 12 monts after getting drafted out of college, Schwarber, 22, stepped on the field and became an impact bat for the Cubs. His big August regressed into a quieter September. But his October got off to a big start with a single to left field in the first inning to drive in Dexter Fowler with the first run, and then a two-run homer in his second at-bat of the Cubs’ 4-0 victory over the Pirates in the National League Wild Card game. All this against Pirates ace Gerrit Cole.

For Jake Arrieta, a three-run lead looked enormous.

“The home run gave us a cushion and I was just able to continue to make pitches and not let the atmosphere get to me too often,’’ Arrieta said.

An atmosphere that didn’t get to Schwarber.

“You don’t think that these guys are 21, 23 years old,’’ Arrieta said of Cubs Schwarber and fellow rookie shortstop Addison Russell and third baseman Kris Bryant, “because they don’t play like it.’’

Bryant, the likely NL Rookie of the Year, was 0-for-3, but he played two positions and started a big double play with a tough backhand stop. Schwarber was the first Cubs rookie to homer in his first postseason game.

“We executed the game plan to a T today,’’ Schwarber said. “Dex got on base. We just tried to hit the ball hard and lay off inside. Don’t chase. Make solid contact.’’

Maddon has said the most remarkable thing about this Cubs’ 97-win regular season and what might follow – they’re off to St. Louis to begin the NLDS on Friday – is that they’re doing it with such a substantial rookie presence. Cubs rookies combined for 66 homers, highest all-time by a Cubs rookie class and tied for the fourth- highest total by a rookie class in NL history.

“When I talk about our kids everyone focuses on their skill which is outstanding but the thing that sets our young guys apart is they are so accountable,’’ Maddon said. “Never one excuse coming out of their mouths.’’

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Chicago Sun-Times Jake Arrieta, Kyle Schwarber carry Cubs past Pirates in 4-0 wild-card win By Gordon Wittenmyer

PITTSBURGH – Anyone who wondered how this uninitiated young Cubs team would handle the playoffs needed to duck if they were anywhere near home plate in the seventh inning Wednesday night at PNC Park.

Cubs ace Jake Arrieta, who had already bottled up the Pirates for six innings, was hit by a pitch from Tony Watson in the seventh, briefly exchanged words and then found himself in the middle of a bench-clearing scrum near home plate – delaying for several minutes the Cubs’ first postseason victory in 12 years.

Less than seven innings into the win-or-go-home, wild-card playoff game, it was the team with all the playoff experience these last three years that snapped under the duress of Arrieta’s dominance and the pressure of a 98- win season of expectations.

And the team with three rookies in the lineup got three early RBIs from one of them – two on rookie Kyle Schwarber’s third-inning home run that cleared the right-field seats and headed toward the Alleghany River.

“This is a special group that we have here,” Schwarber said as the champagne sprayed in the clubhouse following the 4-0 victory. “I feel that this group can go all the way.”

Next comes a date with the Cardinals on Friday in St. Louis for the opener of the first postseason series in history between the Midwest rivals – certain to be another high-tension series against heated rivals.

The Cubs won the last two series of the season against the Cards.

“We’re bulldogs. We’re going to fight,” Addison Russell said. “We’re going to fight till the end. The type of players we have, we’re not going to shy down from a challenge.

“We just went out there and handled some business.”

Arrieta handled a lot of it with a four-hit complete game, striking out 11 to tie Kerry Wood’s 2003 playoff record.

“I don’t even think he was on like he’s been on,” Wood said. “It’s scary how good this guy.”

But it was a supporting case of rookies and first-year Cubs veterans that also made this unlikely October ride to St. Louis happen.

Schwarber was in AA when the season opened. Russell was in AAA.

“It’s crazy to think,” said Schwarber, who debuted in June. “But this is crunch time. We’re ready for it.”

A year early? No expectations?

If that idea didn’t sail out of the stadium with Schwarber’s home run, it was beaten to a pulp in the seventh-inning shoving match that might have put the Cardinals and everyone else in the playoff field on notice that the Cubs have arrived.

“I really believe the process is fearless,” Cubs manager Joe Maddon said, trying to explain how so many young players have been able to continue to contribute to a 97-win team so late in the season.

“If you’re really focusing on the outcome and just winning, then you can become fearful. But you just focus on the process, the process is fearless. From Day 1 we talked about process more than anything.”

Whether anyone else believed they could reach this point – let alone what Schwarber believes is coming in a few weeks – they’re here now. And oblivious to the whole century-of-Cub-heartbreak thing.

“I don’t think it’s early at all,” Rookie of the Year favorite Kris Bryant said of the expectations. “We believe in ourselves.

“This is a really exciting time for the Cubs,” first baseman Anthony Rizzo said before the game. “But we have a lot to prove. We have a lot of talent, but we have to go out and take it.”

Building on what they’ve done all year – including a 46-18 finish to the regular season – the Cubs jumped ahead of Pirates ace Gerrit Cole quickly when Dexter Fowler singled leading off the game, stole second and scored on Schwarber’s ensuing single.

By the time Schwarber cleared the seats in the third, and Fowler added a solo shot to center in the fifth, this team that finished in last place the last two seasons and looked like a decent bet for 83 or 84 wins suddenly was on its way to achieving something not even Alfonso Soriano’s high-priced playoff teams in 2007 and ’08 could do.

They won a playoff game.

How far can they take it?

“Who knows?” said Wood, who was the closer for the 2008 team that won 97 games. “They’re young, they’re hungry, they’re obviously talented. And they’re hot right now, and confident.

“They’ve got everything going in their favor right now.”

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Chicago Sun-Times Benches clear, David Ross chokes a guy, Cubs advance in playoffs By Gordon Wittenmyer

PITTSBURGH – Wait’ll next year.

Usually that means something different for the Cubs. This time it’s about the tensions with the division-rival Pirates that aren’t likely to be forgotten soon – by Pittsburgh’s Sean Rodriguez anyway — after spilling into a benches- clearing incident during the Cubs’ 4-0 wild-card playoff victory that eliminated the Pirates after a 98-win season.

After Cubs ace Jake Arrieta was hit by a pitch from Tony Watson with two out in the seventh, and the Cubs leading 4-0, words were exchanged, and the benches quickly emptied.

Along the way Cubs catcher David Ross’s hand wound up on the neck of an enraged Rodriguez, who then tried to fight Ross and was ejected.

“I was frustrated. The guy choked me and I couldn’t get to him,” said Rodriguez, the only player ejected. “Our guys held me back out of love as a teammate, and to make sure things didn’t escalate.”

Rodriguez gestured to the umpires from the dugout, putting his hands around his throat, and then took his frustration out on a Gatorade cooler, punching it out until it fell to the dugout floor.

“It’s not what you want to show people. I shouldn’t have happened,” Rodriguez said. “But I was very frustrated at the time. I’d just got choked.”

Ross said there was no intent.

“I was trying to stop him as he charged me,” Ross said, “and he bent down, and my hand went on his throat.

“It was just one hand. It was a total accident. I get it [how he feels]. But then he swung on me. He may have seen it another way.

“I was just going out there to calm everything down. It got hairy fast.”

Arrieta hit two Pirates with pitches earlier in the game that appeared to have no intent, but said he anticipated being hit when he stepped to the plate in the seventh.

“It’s just one of those situations where you expect Tony to protect his guys,” said Arrieta adding that his two were unintentional.

Said Watson of the pitch: “It is what it is.”

Both benches were warned by the , and after the melee subsided, Arrieta stole second base.

Whether any of it results in higher tensions when the teams meet 19 times next season, presumably chasing returns to the playoffs, nobody expects to back down.

“You’re going to stand up for your guys and they’re going to stand up for their guys,” Ross said.

Cubs manager Joe Maddon: “Everybody knows we’re all there for each other. …

“Regarding anything that you thought may have been inappropriate tonight, you guys be the judge of that. … I think you can draw your own conclusions.”

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Daily Herald Miles: Cubs' postseason party starts with another Arrieta gem By Bruce Miles

PITTSBURGH -- The party inside the Chicago Cubs clubhouse went on Wednesday night.

And then it went on some more.

Case after case of bubbly was wheeled into the visitors clubhouse at PNC Park after the Cubs shut out the Pittsburgh Pirates 4-0 in the wild-card playoff game.

After their seemingly nonstop party, the Cubs had to board a plane for their nonstop flight to St. Louis. On Friday, they'll open the best-of-five National League division series against their rivals, the Cardinals, at Busch Stadium. The victory was the Cubs' first in the postseason since the 2003 championship series.

Perhaps team president Theo Epstein put it best.

"It wouldn't have felt right to go home," he said. "We had a little magic going on all year long. It just felt, with all of our being, that we deserved a nice little run here in October. Congratulations to the Pirates on a great regular season. They have every right to feel like they should be going on too."

The Cubs won 97 games in the regular season to finish 1 game behind the Pirates, who earned homefield advantage for this do-or-die game.

But the Cubs had their ace in the hole in the form of ace pitcher Jake Arrieta. The 22-game winner from the regular season went the distance, giving up only 4 hits and throwing 113 pitches.

"Yeah, I didn't want to see anybody in the bullpen," Arrieta said. "I wanted to finish what I started and be the guy to get the last out."

Arrieta was involved in some fireworks, too. In the top of the seventh inning, Arrieta was plunked by a pitch from Pirates reliever Tony Watson. It certainly looked intentional, as Arrieta earlier came up and in on Pirates catcher Francisco Cervelli and grazed him with a pitch. He hit Josh Harrison in the sixth.

Benches emptied and warnings were issued. The only casualty was the Pirates' Sean Rodriguez, who was ejected after taking a swing at backup Cubs catcher David Ross. The only thing Rodriguez connected with was the Gatorade jug in the dugout.

Arrieta attributed the fracas to one thing: "The playoffs. There's a lot at stake. Tempers are running hot, and it is what it is."

He added he was not trying to hit either batter he hit.

"Well, you've got a pitcher that's dotting everything up, throwing four pitches for strikes, and Cervelli gets pitched hot up top, so I don't think anybody was a fan of that," said Pirates manager Clint Hurdle.

Cubs manager Joe Maddon focused on the win instead.

"I think you can draw your own conclusions fro what you saw," Maddon said. "That said, I really don't want to denigrate this entire moment for our organization and team."

As far as the rest of the game went, the Cubs executed their game plan the way Maddon drew it up. He went with an offensive-oriented lineup to jump on Pirates ace Gerrit Cole early and then sub for defense later.

Kyle Schwarber made it 1-0 Cubs in the first inning, hitting an opposite-field single to left to score Dexter Fowler, who led off the game with a single. In the third, Fowler singled, and Schwarber crushed a home run over the right- field bleachers and toward the Allegheny River. Fowler added a solo homer in the fifth.

"We executed the game plan to a T today," said Schwarber, who started in right field. "Dex got on base pretty much every time except once."

In addition to Schwarber in right, Maddon went with third baseman Kris Bryant in left, with Tommy La Stella starting at third. Bryant eventually moved to third, with Schwarber and La Stella exiting the game.

Maddon was happy about it all.

"Our whole team, you're talking about three rookies starting tonight," he said of Bryant, Schwarber and shortstop Addison Russell. "Pretty much all contributing in a big way, whether it was defensively or offensively. But Jake is a different cat, man. He's just a different cat. I could just think of (Joe) Namath guaranteeing the Super Bowl victory, that's all I could think about the last few days.

"Just sitting in the lounge chair by the pool with all those reporters surrounding him. I was a big Namath fan in '69. That was my thought."

And Joe knew how to party, too.

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Daily Herald Imrem: Cubs' magical mystery tour ready for St. Louis By Mike Imrem

Let's start by looking forward to what's next, the 100-victory Cardinals.

OK, all right, we'll take just a moment to look back at Wednesday night's 4-0 victory at Pittsburgh in the National League wild card game.

Pretty familiar stuff, really.

A veteran, this time Dexter Fowler, and a youngster, this time Kyle Schwarber, provided the offense.

Then there was pitching ace Jake Arrieta, who took the Cubs' first-inning run and did what he does: Not just shut down the opposition but shut them out for nine innings.

Oh, and then there was the dust-up in the seventh inning when Tony Watson hit Arrieta with a pitch, emptying both benches and precipitating a bunch of barking.

That should prepare the Cubs for what's next: A renewal of the bitter rivalry with the Cardinals that escalated into nastiness again this season.

How long before the Cubs and Cards exchange high hard ones in the NL Division Series that opens Friday night at St. Louis?

Beyond the acrimony, what the series figures to be is the Cubs' magical mystery tour vs. the Cardinals' mystique.

"We're going to do what we did today," Cubs' rookie slugger Kris Bryant said, "play as hard as we can and see what happens."

Seriously, the Cubs must be thinking, "Bring 'em on."

The Cardinals had the major leagues' best record this year, but looking at their batting order, they must have done it with mystique.

The Cubs finished a mere three games behind the Cards and now have won nine straight games as the magical mystery tour rolls merrily along.

The Cardinals have frustrated the Cubs so many times for so many years on the way to winning so many championships.

That's where the Cardinals' mystique comes in. As the NL's model franchise, an opponent better believe it can beat them to have any chance.

If any Cubs' team might do have that feeling, it's this one that has been gathering momentum for the past three months.

The Cubs have so many young players -- young stars even -- that couldn't care less about who and what the Cardinals have been and are.

All these guys know is what it says on the T-shirts that many of them wear around the clubhouse: "We're good."

With the sort of belief that Maddon has instilled in the young Cubs as well as their veteran teammates, beating the Cardinals is plausible.

Not that it will be easy. Not that it is probable more than simply possible. Not that the Cubs will be anything but underdogs when the first pitch is thrown.

Nevertheless, the magical mystery tour has taken the Cubs this far so the feeling increasingly became that they just might be immunized to the pressure of pennant-race baseball and postseason baseball.

That certainly appeared to be the case as the Cubs kept getting better and better and winning more and more during the second half of the season.

Then it appeared to still be the case as the Cubs routinely disposed of the Pirates in what was the first taste of the postseason for so many of them.

Now the Cubs are supposed to be championship contenders for the next few years but that isn't guaranteed.

Nobody knows for sure that this won't be the Cubs' best opportunity for a long time to qualify for the World Series for the first time since 1945.

It'll be interesting to see whether the Cubs' magical mystery tour can run over the Cardinals' mystique as soon as possible.

Let the fun begin in earnest Friday night at St. Louis.

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Daily Herald Rozner: Young Cubs take another wild step By Barry Rozner

You can't blame the Cubs for thinking this one was over before it started.

The way Jake Arrieta has thrown the ball the last three months, advancing past the Pirates seemed a fait accompli.

It was all that and more.

The rookies were brilliant and the Cubs moved on to the NLDS against St. Louis with a 4-0 victory Wednesday night at PNC Park in Pittsburgh, which was hosting its third consecutive wild card game, another cruel finish for the home team but a sweet glimpse into what the future holds for the young Cubs.

For them, however, the future is now.

"We haven't done anything yet," said Anthony Rizzo. "We thought we would be here and we thought we could go far this year. That's what we intend to do."

The first step was a season in which their own management hoped they could play a game or two over .500, and instead they won a whopping 97 games, good enough only for a chance to play in the wild card game.

They took the next step Wednesday night when they took down a 98-win Pirates team that was talented enough to win the World Series, but had the misfortune of running into the hottest pitcher on the planet.

The next step is the NLDS, which begins Friday night in St. Louis.

While Joe Maddon loaded his lineup with bats -- putting Kyle Schwarber in right and Kris Bryant in left -- Pirates manager Clint Hurdle loaded his lineup with gloves, sitting Pedro Alvarez, Aramis Ramirez and in favor of players who can actually bend over and pick up the baseball.

Ironically, there were two misplays in the first inning and it helped the Cubs get on the board.

Dexter Fowler led with a single and should have been out stealing, but third baseman Josh Harrison took the throw at second while in the shift and dropped the ball.

After the Cubs took a 1-0 lead against Gerrit Cole on an RBI single by Schwarber, Rizzo later reached on an error, a ball in the dirt that first baseman Sean Rodriguez -- in for defense -- should have been able to scoop.

In the third, Schwarber got his second hit in as many postseason at-bats when he jumped on a 2-1 pitch and blasted it into the river with Fowler aboard for a 3-0 Cubs lead.

In the bottom of the inning, Alvarez hit for Rodriguez, who never batted in the game. His entire contribution to the contest was throwing a cowardly punch and getting tossed in the seventh after Arrieta was hit and the benches emptied.

In the fifth, Fowler smoked a one-out homer to give the Cubs a 4-0 lead, giving Fowler 3 hits and 3 runs scored in his first 3 at-bats.

While Cole struggled to find the corners, Arrieta displayed the entire arsenal, and the game was all but over after Schwarber's home run.

An Addison Russell error in the sixth loaded the bases, but Russell came right back on the next play and turned a double play to end the inning.

After moving to third, Bryant backhanded a hard-hit ball and turned a double play in the seventh, the rookies -- including Schwarber -- showing their mettle in the toughest moments of the game.

For most of the night, Arrieta was brilliant. His power fastball was ferocious with movement, spotting it wherever he wanted. It was darting and sinking, and his two-seamers were effective against righties and lefties.

His curve was sharp, the change-up obliterating and his -- probably the best in the National League -- devastating.

With the ability to throw up, down, in and out with all four pitches, it's more like having 16 different options, before you even consider the way he changes speeds with all of his pitches.

Four hits, no walks, 11 whiffs and another complete-game shutout. Arrieta was dominating -- again.

After such a brilliant season, you wonder if we're about to see , circa 2014, when Bumgarner threw a shutout at PNC Park in the wild card game and then carried the Giants all the way to a World Series title.

With 4 wins and a save, Bumgarner fired 52 postseason innings on top of the 218 he tossed during the regular season, and now Arrieta is in a similar zone after throwing 229 innings during the regular season.

"He's in such great shape and prepares so hard, he looks as strong now as he did in April," Bryant said. "He's as strong in the ninth inning as he is in the first inning.

"He knows the stage and it doesn't affect him. He can really carry us a long way and I'm glad he's on our team."

He's on a team headed to the NLDS -- and maybe a stage considerably bigger than that.

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Daily Herald Epstein says he's just going to enjoy Cubs' ride By Bruce Miles

PITTSBURGH -- Aside from worrying about the outcome of the wild-card game, Cubs president Theo Epstein said Wednesday that he would take a moment to appreciate what his team has done this year.

"I'm forcing myself to step back and enjoy it," Epstein said before the Cubs took on the Pirates in the playoff game. "During the game, I'll be tense and wrapped up.

"On the way over here, I walked over with one of the guys I work with. He asked, 'What's going through your mind?' I said, 'You know what? I want to play a game that's representative of our team and how special we feel our players are and the season has been.' More than anything, I'm taking some time to appreciate it, the fact that we're here, and that I'm happy and proud to be here."

Much has been written and discussed about the one-game playoff, especially because it involves the teams with the second-and third-best records in .

Epstein said he was of a mind to deal with it.

"I'm at peace with it," he said. "Baseball is not supposed to be perfectly fair. There's no way to make the system 100 percent fair to everybody without turning it into one of the other sports that I don't like in the way they run their conference seeding, 1 through 8.

"We knew the rules going in. There's no complaining. If you want to host the best-of-five, then win the division. It's fine. I feel like we deserve a home playoff game, that our players deserve a nice run. We knew the rules going in. We have complaints. If you win, there's nothing to complain about.

"If somebody has a gripe, it's the '93 Giants. They won 103 games and went home. We're fine. We have a chance to play our way into deeper October. That's all you can ever ask for."

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Daily Herald Chicago Cubs go with 15 position players vs. Pittsburgh Pirates By Bruce Miles

PITTSBURGH -- The Chicago Cubs will go with a roster of 15 position players and 10 pitchers for Wednesday night's one-game wild-card playoff game against the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Right-hander Jake Arrieta will pitch for the Cubs. Other starting pitchers to make the roster are Jon Lester and Kyle Hendricks. They are safeguards in case something happens with Arrieta.

The bullpen will be: left-handers Clayton Richard and and right-handers , , Trevor Cahill, Fernando Rodney and Hector Rondon.

Notable names not making the roster among relievers are Neil Ramirez and Zac Rosscup.

The Cubs will go with speedster Quintin Berry among the position players. Miguel Montero and David Ross are on the roster. Regular infielders Anthony Rizzo, Starlin Castro, Addison Russell and Kris Bryant are on, as are Tommy La Stella and Javier Baez.

In addition to Berry, the are , Kyle Schwarber, Dexter Fowler, , and Austin Jackson.

The Cubs did not include infielder Jonathan Herrera, who was with the team all year. Outfielder Matt Szczur, who was up and down all year between the Cubs and Class AAA Iowa, also is not on the wild-card roster.

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Daily Herald Constable: Pirates good appetizer, but Cards the dish Cubs fans want By Burt Constable

Now fully immersed in playoff baseball, we Cubs fans take deep breaths and try to match the calm, even detached, demeanor of St. Louis Cardinals fans, who expect to be here every October. Instead of lamenting, "Wait till next year," we're shouting, "Wait till Friday night!"

That's when our Cubs, led by Dexter Fowler, Kyle Schwarber and Jake Arrieta in their impressive 4-0 victory Wednesday night over the Pittsburgh Pirates, will open the National League Division Series in St. Louis. Pittsburgh is such a nice city, with cool bridges and an Andy Warhol museum, that we almost feel bad for those mourning Pirates fans.

But there is no pity in baseball. Hatred, however, thrives.

"The hated Cardinals -- Satan's messengers on Earth," Cubs fan Bill Murray opined after a Cardinals fan heckled him during a golf tourney this summer.

We don't hate just the Cardinals players. Their fans are hard to stomach, too. Arrogant Cardinals fans basically are fans, without the Big Apple polish. Yankees games have bright lights and Jay-Z. St. Louis games have big mosquitoes and memories of back flips.

My wife, normally a kind, gentle soul, hates everything about the Cardinals, beginning with their logo, which looks to her to be a teeter-totter for birds. Her assertion that bright red is not a flattering color for most Cardinals fans rings true for me, since I try to wear muted colors that don't bring attention to my physique. Generally depicted as pudgy, white and dressed poorly, Cardinals fans look like the evil Dudley Dursley family in those "Harry Potter" movies.

Everybody who doesn't live in the 314 area code (and it says something that I had to look up St. Louis' area code) is sick of the Cardinals.

The rivalry began on April 12, 1892, when Chicago spanked St. Louis 14-10. Since then, the Cubs actually have had success against St. Louis, winning 1,197 games while the Cards have won only 1,147. But in the two most-recent centuries, the Cardinals have won more titles.

I used to give St. Louis some credit for winning 11 World Series Championships in a small market. The city's second- greatest claim to fame, now that the bowling hall of fame left town, is the quirky and fun City Museum, where adventurous visitors seem likely to pile up more injuries than this year's Cardinals team.

Hate for some fans goes back to 1964, when the Cubs traded future Hall-of-Famer for aging pitcher . Others trace their hate to another former Cub who went on to fame with the Cardinals. A poor baseball player, Tony LaRussa pinch-ran for Cubs legend Ron Santo on Opening Day of 1973 and scored the winning run on a walk with the bases loaded. It was his last appearance in a big-league game, until the White Sox signed him as manager in 1979. After Chicago, LaRussa went on to win one world championship with the Oakland A's and two more with the Cardinals. LaRussa did it all with muscled sluggers during the steroid era, distractions that included his own drunken-driving episode, and a haughty arrogance that made Cubs fans love to loathe him and his teams.

The hate escalated this season after the Cardinals hit Cubs slugger Anthony Rizzo with a pitch. Cubs manager Joe Maddon fired back, dismissing the so-called Cardinals Way, and compared the infamous pitch to a hit ordered by former TV mob chief Tony Soprano. The Cardinals are a "vigilante group that all of a sudden wants to get their own pound of flesh," Maddon said. "That's absolutely insane, ridiculous and wrong."

Now all that bad blood is coming to a boiling point. It won't be decided with pithy quotes and clever Facebook memes. "We don't start stuff, but we will stop stuff," Maddon said last month.

Maddon started the high hopes for Cubs fans before the season began.

"We're going to set our mark high, and I'm going to talk playoffs and World Series this year," Maddon promised, "and I'm going to believe it."

Everyone believes it now, Joe.

Cubs fans who've always hated watching the Cardinals in the postseason now have the chance to watch their team do something about it.

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Cubs.com Arrieta, Cubs ace Wild Card test vs. Bucs By Tom Singer and Carrie Muskat

PITTSBURGH -- The Cubs' first step toward their ultimate goal of ending a 107-year World Series championship drought was contentious, yet also decisive.

Jake Arrieta weaved his routine spell, and rookie Kyle Schwarber drove in the first three runs -- two on a majestic 450-foot homer out of PNC Park -- and Chicago blanked Pittsburgh, 4-0, in Wednesday night's National League Wild Card Game presented by Budweiser to advance to face the Cardinals in the NL Division Series, which begins on Friday at 6:30 p.m. ET on TBS.

"We came out and we fought early," said Arrieta. "We got one on the board in the first, then we kind of settled in. We got a couple more a couple innings later, and from there, it was pound the zone and try to get as many outs as quick as possible."

The Pirates did not go down without a fight. After a one-out, bases-loaded rally was snuffed out by an inning- ending double play in the bottom of the sixth inning, the benches cleared in the top of the seventh, when Tony Watson hit Arrieta with a pitch. Sean Rodriguez was ejected.

Arrieta threw a four-hit complete game, which was his intention, and struck out 11. What was his pitch count? "It was infinity," Cubs manager Joe Maddon said.

"I wanted to finish what I started and be the guy to get the last out," Arrieta said. "That was the mind-set."

By ending a nine-game postseason losing streak that dated back to Game 4 of the 2003 NL Championship Series, Chicago advanced to the NL Division Series that begins in St. Louis on Friday. The Cubs' Jon Lester will face the Cards' John Lackey in Game 1 in the first postseason meeting of the longtime NL rivals.

Advancing to the NLDS also means that the Cubs will play at least one postseason game at Wrigley Field, with Game 3 scheduled for Monday.

"The most important thing is we get to play a game at Wrigley," Maddon said. "That was important to me."

Conversely, the Bucs dropped a second consecutive home Wild Card Game, this one short-circuiting a season in which they won 98 regular-season games, the Majors' second-most wins. In 2014, they dropped that Wild Card Game, 8-0, to the eventual World Series champ Giants behind a gem from ace left-hander Madison Bumgarner. "We had some opportunities, just weren't able to key [in] on those," said Andrew McCutchen, who went 1-for-4. "[Arrieta] found a way to keep coming up with the big pitches when he had to."

Schwarber gave the Cubs an instant one-run lead off Gerrit Cole with a first-inning RBI single, and two innings later followed the second of Dexter Fowler's three hits with his homer. Fowler added a fifth-inning solo homer off Cole, who had not allowed the Cubs a home run in 27 previous innings this season and a total of only two in 58 prior career innings against Chicago.

"I couldn't really get into a good rhythm," said Cole. "I wasn't able to make pitches when I needed to. The two home runs were bad. I was trying to figure things out out there, trying to find something to go to, something to work. It's just one of those nights."

MOMENTS THAT MATTERED

Tempers flared: Arrieta hit Francisco Cervelli in the fifth and Josh Harrison in the sixth, and the Pirates retaliated in the seventh, when Watson plunked him. Both benches emptied, and after plenty of shoving and shouting, the Bucs' Rodriguez was ejected. Home-plate umpire Jeff Nelson issued warnings to both sides.

"[Umpire John Hirschbeck] told me that Rodriguez was kicked out for them and the warning was issued and let's get through this thing, and I said, 'I'm with you man, 100 percent,'" Maddon said. "I was really surprised at what happened."

"I'm never trying to hit or hurt anybody," said Arrieta. "Balls were slick tonight. I just lost it a couple times. It kind of ran away from me. I expected that. They're going to take care of their own guys. It's understandable. Everything after that was fine."

Electric crowd unplugged: For the second straight Wild Card Game, a jacked-up PNC Park crowd -- at 40,889, the largest ever -- was quickly subdued. Two batters into the game, the Pirates trailed, 1-0, as Fowler led off with a single, stole second and scored on Schwarber's opposite-field single.

Hit parade: Maddon's message to Fowler is "you go, we go," and the veteran followed that advice. In the first inning, he singled, stole second and scored on Schwarber's opposite-field single. Fowler set up Schwarber again in the third; he singled with one out, and the rookie launched a 2-1 pitch from Cole over the right-field bleachers to open a three-run lead. According to Statcast™, the ball came off Schwarber's bat at 111.34 mph and was launched a projected 450 feet. How far has he come? A year ago, Schwarber was playing in the instructional league in Arizona.

"It was a good feeling," said Schwarber. "It came off solid. It was a good situation to do it in. Dexter did a great job today getting on base and getting a homer. Hats off to him. Hats off to the whole team today."

"He hit that ball, and I couldn't even celebrate, because I wanted to see how far it went," Chicago's David Ross said.

Pirates' big shot misfires: The Bucs had one wide-open window to get back in the game, loading the bases with one out in the sixth on Travis Snider's pinch-hit single, Harrison getting hit by a pitch and Addison Russell's error on McCutchen's grounder to short. Then Arrieta quickly shut it down, inducing Starling Marte into an inning-ending double-play grounder.

"Pushed a couple times late, squared a couple balls up," Pirates manager Clint Hurdle said, "and they turned them into double plays. Arrieta was ahead of almost every count through five. The ball-to-strike sequencing didn't give us a chance to get many offensive counts."

QUOTABLE

"Unbelievable gutsy performance by the team. [The] 4-0 [score] is misleading. There was a lot of drama in that game, a lot of emotion, a lot of tension. Jake had to find a second gear after all that drama in the sixth inning. ... We're on a nice little run here in October. Congratulations to the Pirates on a great regular season. They [ought] to feel they should be going on, too. It's a great organization. We're thrilled to keep this magical season going." -- Theo Epstein, Cubs president of baseball operations

"There's a lot of positives to take from this. The disappointment in losing this game is obviously something that we feel right now. But walking away from this season, we poured our hearts and souls into it. We grinded through a lot of stuff. We put up when we needed to put up. There's nothing to hang your head over when you're talking about that kind of stuff, talking about a team battling through a season. Wouldn't want to compete with any other guys. It really is like a family in here. It's probably used a little too often, but there's a lot of hard work. We do have a lot to show for it. But tonight, it burns." – Cole

"I'm really excited. I know our guys are about the opportunity to play in St. Louis and then bring it back to Wrigley. How about that? We get a chance to bring it back to Wrigley. That's pretty solid." -- Maddon

"Sports is hard. Life's not fair. You go out and play. You get beat, you move on. I thanked the guys for the incredible ride they took the coaching staff, the support staff, everybody in that clubhouse on this year." -- Hurdle

SOUND SMART WITH YOUR FRIENDS

Fowler is the first Cubs player in postseason history with a home run, a and at least three hits and three runs scored in a game. It was his first game with three hits and three runs scored since June 9, 2013, against the Padres when he was with the Rockies.

Arrieta is the first pitcher in postseason history to fire a shutout while striking out at least 10 batters and walking none. The previous high for in a no-walk shutout was nine, set by in Game 3 of the 2010 NLDS.

WHAT'S NEXT

Cubs: Chicago moves on to face St. Louis in the NLDS, with Game 1 at Busch Stadium on Friday at 6:30 p.m. ET (TBS). Lester will be on the hill opposite Lackey. Game 2 is on Saturday in St. Louis (5:30 p.m. ET, TBS), with the series moving to Wrigley Field for Game 3 on Monday (time TBD, TBS). Game 4, if necessary, would be on Tuesday in Chicago (time TBD, TBS), and Game 5, if necessary, would be at Busch Stadium on Oct. 15 (time TBD, TBS). Pirates: The Bucs' season is complete. They open the 2016 season at home on April 4 against the Cardinals.

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Cubs.com Benches clear after Pirates plunk Arrieta By Carrie Muskat

PITTSBURGH -- All the Cubs wanted was to keep Jake Arrieta in the game. Emotions ran high and tempers flared in the seventh inning Wednesday night after their ace was hit by a pitch from Pirates reliever Tony Watson.

In the Cubs' 4-0 win over the Bucs in the National League Wild Card Game presented by Budweiser, Watson's first pitch to Arrieta sailed inside and hit the Chicago pitcher near the hip. Arrieta exchanged words with Watson as he headed up the first-base line, and benches cleared shortly after home-plate umpire Jeff Nelson issued a warning. "[Arrieta] was just talking to [Pirates catcher Francisco Cervelli], and I was trying to keep Cervy in the game, then all of a sudden everybody was around us," Watson said.

A mob of players formed up the first-base line. After the relievers sprinted in from the bullpen, order was restored and Arrieta took his base. Arrieta, working on a shutout, had hit Cervelli in the fifth and plunked Josh Harrison in the sixth.

"Well, you've got a pitcher that's dotting everything up, throwing four pitches for strikes and Cervelli gets pitched hot up top," Pirates manager Clint Hurdle said. "So I don't think anybody was a fan of that. Josh got hit with a breaking ball. That's probably just a pitch that got away."

"I hit two guys, unintentionally," Arrieta said. "I'm never trying to hit or hurt anybody. Balls were slick tonight. I just lost it a couple times. It kind of ran away from me. I expected that. They're going to take care of their own guys. It's understandable. Everything after that was fine."

Pittsburgh utility man Sean Rodriguez was the only player ejected following the brief fracas on the field. After his part in the incident, Rodriguez repeatedly punched a drink cooler before retreating to the Pirates clubhouse.

Rodriguez was upset at Cubs catcher David Ross, who apparently grabbed him around the neck.

"Ross grabbed me by my throat," Rodriguez said. "When you're trying to calm things down, that's not how you go about it. That's above and beyond what can happen on the field."

Said Ross: "[Rodriguez] swung at me. It's just one of those things, like, 'Whoa.' It got serious fast. It really shocked me. I understand, I didn't mean to put my hand around his throat."

This was the 20th meeting between the two teams this season and first ever in the postseason. There already were some bad feelings left over from the Sept. 17 game when Chicago's Chris Coghlan slid hard into shortstop Jung Ho Kang, who suffered a season-ending torn lateral meniscus in his left leg.

"We're not here to fight those guys," Ross said. "That's not what we came here to do. Unfortunately, it got a little ugly for a minute. We're happy for these guys. It's a good group.

"It's one of those things where we're out there protecting our guy, they're protecting their guys. [Arrieta] hit two guys on accident, in my opinion. It's a hostile environment and sometimes temper flares."

The concern for the Cubs was that Arrieta would get hurt or ejected. The right-hander stayed in and completed a four-hit shutout to help the Cubs advance to the NL Division Series.

"That's why we went out there -- and not to protect him, [because] he doesn't need protecting," Ross said. "Just get out there and calm things down. You don't want Jake's temper to go up and you'd hate for something to happen to Jake and get tossed out of the game. We settled things down before it got out of control."

Cubs manager Joe Maddon said that was his only concern.

"When [umpire] John Hirschbeck came to talk to me, I was curious at what they'd seen," Maddon said. "I couldn't argue over anything. He told me that Rodriguez was kicked out for them and the warning was issued and let's get through this thing and I said, 'I'm with you, man, 100 percent.' I was really surprised at what happened."

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Cubs.com Schwarber, Fowler homers power Cubs By Jordan Bastian

PITTSBURGH -- As champagne dripped from his nose and matted down his close-cropped hair, Cubs rookie Kyle Schwarber was not only smiling, but he began to smirk. As the party raged on in front of him, Schwarber could still see the baseball that disappeared behind the right-field stands at PNC Park.

"I watched it," Schwarber admitted after Chicago's 4-0 triumph over the Pirates on Wednesday night, a victory that sealed a date with the rival Cardinals in the National League Division Series, which will begin with the series opener on Friday, airing at 5:30 p.m. CT on TBS.

In the NL Wild Card Game presented by Budweiser, Schwarber and leadoff man Dexter Fowler powered an early offensive attack that chased Pittsburgh ace Gerrit Cole after five innings. Schwarber launched a majestic third- inning home run that will remain in the memories of both Cubs and Pirates fans for years to come. Fowler set the table with three hits, including a solo homer, and scored three runs.

By the fifth inning, the Cubs dug the Pirates into a 4-0 hole that probably felt twice as deep with Chicago ace and NL Award contender Jake Arrieta on the hill. The overpowering right-hander allowed only four earned runs in his final 91 1/3 innings of the regular season, and Schwarber and Fowler saw to it that five were required to stop Chicago's rotation leader.

For the Cubs, seeing four runs on the scoreboard and Arrieta on the mound is a comfortable feeling.

"It definitely is, especially playing center field," Fowler said. "You see how his ball's moving, and you see the swings guys are taking."

Arrieta made their work hold up, blanking Pittsburgh in an incredible four-hit shutout.

Ten pitches into the night, Chicago had a 1-0 lead on Cole and the Pirates. A combination of early singles and a timely stolen base by Fowler helped the Cubs strike against Cole in the inning that has been his weakness throughout this season.

With PNC Park's black-clad crowd already at a raucous decibel level, Fowler led off the contest with a single that dropped just in front of center fielder Andrew McCutchen. Fowler promptly swiped second base, narrowly beating the throw from Pittsburgh catcher Francisco Cervelli to give Chicago its first runner in scoring position.

"It was awesome to put a little pressure on him," Fowler said. "At the same time, with that guy on the mound, that's what you have to do -- don't let him get comfortable."

Cole, who gave up more runs in the first inning (14) than any other frame during the regular season, then allowed a single to left field off the bat of Schwarber. Fowler raced home from second base, putting the Pirates in a quick hole and giving Arrieta an early lead. While Cole dodged further damage in the opening inning, Chicago would strike again in the third.

With one out, Fowler singled to right field, setting up Schwarber's first career postseason home run. Schwarber used a powerful swing to rip a pitch from Cole deep into the Pittsburgh night, sending it over the stands for a home run that traveled a projected distance of 450 feet, according to Statcast™. The ball rocketed off his bat at an exit velocity of 111.34 mph.

"It was a good feeling," Schwarber said. "You don't really feel it hit the bat. You just see it go."

It was not only the hardest-hit homer this year for Schwarber -- his previous best was a 110.32-mph blast on Aug. 6 -- but it was the third-longest homer of the season by a Cubs batter. Rookie slugger Kris Bryant holds claim to the top two shots: a 495-foot blast on Sept. 6 and a 477-foot shot on May 15.

Fowler later added a solo homer off Cole in the fifth to pad Chicago's lead. The blasts were the first surrendered to the Cubs by Cole this season -- he made four regular-season starts against Chicago, tossing 25 1/3 innings. It was also the first time Cole allowed two homers in a game since May 27.

Schwarber became the first Cubs player since 2003 (Aramis Ramirez and Alex Gonzalez) to have a postseason game with at least one homer, two hits and three RBIs. Fowler joined () as the only Cubs hitters in the team's postseason history to have a homer plus three hits and three runs scored.

"If he goes, we go," said Schwarber, repeating a mantra that Cubs manager Joe Maddon has had for Fowler all season. "He did what a leadoff guy does in the first inning. He hits a single, steals second and we get him in."

As Schwarber spoke, he was quickly drenched in another round of champagne.

Fowler's eyes lit up at the mention of the rookie's tape-measure blast.

"Kyle's awesome," Fowler said. "Him swinging the bat, there's always a chance he hits a homer."

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Cubs.com Wild Card win just first step for savvy Cubs By Phil Rogers

PITTSBURGH -- How do you end a 107-year drought?

You have to start somewhere, and if this turns out to be The Year, history will record that the beginning of the end came at PNC Park, with Jake Arrieta dominating the Pirates -- as he has so many opponents during a season in which he's made manager Joe Maddon think about Bob Gibson, circa 1968 -- in Wednesday night's 4-0 win in the National League Wild Card Game presented by Budweiser to advance to meet the Cardinals in the NL Division Series, which begins Friday at Busch Stadium (5:30 p.m. CT on TBS).

Maddon joked that Arrieta's pitch limit on Wednesday was "infinity.'' He dropped both a Joe Namath and a Gibson on Arrieta in his postgame interview, saying that the Arrieta of recent months has carried himself with the confidence of Namath in guaranteeing victory in the Super Bowl and the Cardinals Hall of Famer he grew up admiring.

"I would say in my experience as a kid growing up, I saw Mr. Gibson out there tonight,'' Maddon said.

An ace like Gibson gives a team a chance to do remarkable things in October, as the Dodgers saw with in 1988 and the Giants with Madison Bumgarner just last year. But still it's quite a leap to take any team that just won the Wild Card Game and project them as the one on the top of the heap at the end. So back to the question -- how do you end a drought that has stretched since 1908.

You have to start somewhere, and team owner Tom Ricketts figured he'd try something new for the franchise he had purchased -- a real commitment to player development and scouting. He hired president of baseball operations Theo Epstein, who hired Maddon, and now the Cubs find themselves with a collection of exceptional players, like Arrieta and Kyle Schwarber, the two who combined to carry the Cubs to their first postseason victory since Game 4 of the 2003 NL Championship Series.

It came at PNC Park, where 40,889 found themselves subdued from the start. But there was the usual large traveling contingent of Cubs fans on hand, including A-listers like Eddie Vedder, John Cusack and David Axelrod, the former Chicago Tribune staffer who orchestrated Barack Obama's presidential campaigns.

There's a feeling that something special is happening for the Cubs, quicker than anyone expected. It picked up steam in early August, when Maddon switched Addison Russell to shortstop. It found another gear at the end of that month when Arrieta no-hit the Dodgers and has kicked into overdrive the last couple of weeks.

Arrieta's four-hit, 11-strikeout performance gave the Cubs their 98th win of the year, eliminating a Pittsburgh team that won 98 regular-season games.

"Unfortunately, one of us had to go,'' Arrieta said. "We were able to come out early and get that run in the first, a big knock by Schwarber, a huge leadoff hit by Dexter [Fowler].

Except for the Pirates hitting Arrieta with a pitch after he had plunked two Bucs, there wasn't nearly as much drama as had been anticipated.

Schwarber's monster shot over the right-field bleachers, projected by Statcast™ to travel 450 feet, and Fowler's three-hit night, capped by his solo home run, gave the Cubs control early as they won their ninth game in a row, with the last seven coming away from Wrigley Field.

Kris Bryant made two highlight-reel plays at third base and Russell started a double play on a smoked ground ball the one time the Pirates got runners into scoring position, loading the bases in the sixth inning.

And now it gets even more fun.

The Cubs' charter left Pittsburgh headed to St. Louis, where they'll meet the Cards in an NL Division Series that features the two winningest MLB teams still alive. The teams last met at Wrigley Field on Sept. 18-20, with the Cubs winning two of three in an emotional series that featured some pointed rhetoric from Maddon and an exchange of hit batters, after Dan Haren plunked Matt Holliday in the head with a pitch.

"I'm really excited about it,'' Maddon said. "I'm already excited about it. Everybody knows I grew up a Cardinal fan, and I get this opportunity as manager to work versus them in a Division Series in 2015. That's pretty awesome, man.''

For as big of an impact as Maddon has had in building swagger into a team coming off five consecutive losing seasons, there's no question he arrived at the exact right moment in time. Epstein, Jed Hoyer, Jason McLeod -- the guys who orchestrated that trade that landed Arrieta from Baltimore and picked Bryant and Schwarber from the Draft pool -- have stocked the organization with better young talent, both in quality and quantity, than it has ever had.

"You don't think that these guys are 21, 23 years old, because they don't play like it,'' Arrieta said. "They have elevated their play to a level that's beyond their years, and it's one of the big reasons we're here. … Our core group of young players has just been exception from the get-go this year.''

Jon Lester, veteran of two World Series triumphs in Boston, is lined up to face former Red Sox teammate John Lackey when the NLDS begins on Friday at Busch Stadium. Arrieta will work Game 3 on Monday at Wrigley, and that's the only time he can start in the best-of-five series.

While the Cubs and Cardinals are traditional rivals, they've mostly battled only over signage in downstate taverns. The Cubs have rarely been the Cards' equal on the field, and Maddon saw a gap between the teams as recently as the first couple of months this season.

But Maddon's team has grown up faster than even he envisioned. The organization's history is still its history, but Epstein and Maddon have created a feeling that the only thing that matters is how good their team can become, not anything to do with billy goats or ancient heartbreaks.

Maybe the problem all those years was the Cubs didn't have good enough players, or at least not enough of them. Ricketts and Epstein set out to change that dynamic, and you'd have to say that was a pretty good place to start.

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Cubs.com 'Different cat' Arrieta dominates Pirates By Carrie Muskat

PITTSBURGH -- Jake Arrieta had every intention of finishing what he started Wednesday night.

In his first postseason game, Arrieta threw a four-hit shutout, striking out 11, to lead the Cubs to a 4-0 victory over the Pirates in the National League Wild Card Game presented by Budweiser.

Claude Passeau was the last Cubs pitcher to throw a shutout in the postseason, doing so Oct. 5, 1945, in Game 3 of the World Series. But Arrieta topped that.

• He's the first pitcher in postseason history to throw a shutout while striking out at least 10 and not walking a batter. The previous high was nine K's, set by Cole Hamels in Game 3 of the 2010 NL Division Series.

• Arrieta's 11 strikeouts tied the Cubs franchise record, set by Kerry Wood in Game 1 of the 2003 NLDS against the Braves. Wood was at PNC Park on Wednesday to share in the win.

• Arrieta is the 10th pitcher all-time to be hit by a pitch in a postseason game. And, after he was plunked, Arrieta then stole second base. He's the fifth pitcher all-time -- and the first since Cliff Lee in 2009 -- to steal a base in the postseason.

It won't show up on the stats sheets but Arrieta getting plunked also sparked a bench-clearing melee in the seventh. He had hit two Pirates earlier in the game and Pittsburgh's Tony Watson decided it was time to get even.

"The playoffs," Arrieta said of why both benches emptied. "There's a lot at stake. Tempers were running hot, and it is what it is. It's just the environment. It breeds that kind of intensity and sometimes those things happen."

This was Arrieta's sixth start this season against the Pirates, and manager Clint Hurdle said he hoped they could push him and make something happen.

"Everything we tried eventually got shut down or pushed back," Hurdle said. "We weren't able to score. He kept us off the plate."

"They've seen Jake a lot and we've seen [Gerrit Cole] a lot," Cubs manager Joe Maddon said. "At the end of the day, it really comes down to execution of pitches in the moment. We were able to get him there."

Arrieta had the advantage in the first three innings as he got ahead 0-2 in the count on seven of the first 10 batters he faced. Rookie Kyle Schwarber gave Arrieta all the offense he needed with an RBI single in the first. Arrieta had not given up a run in his final three regular-season starts, and the Pirates' chances of rallying were slim. He had not served up four runs since June 16 in a game against the Indians.

The largest crowd ever at PNC Park tried to rattle Arrieta by chanting his name early in the game. He shrugged it off.

"The attempt by the 'Burgh faithful to chant his name, which did not infiltrate his mind whatsoever, which I didn't think it would, I thought was kind of interesting," Maddon said.

"Jake is a different cat, man," Maddon said. "He's just a different cat. I could just think of [Joe] Namath guaranteeing a Super Bowl victory, that's all I could think of the last few days."

Arrieta hasn't done that yet but it's still fairly early in the postseason. This was his fifth complete game this year. It may not be his last.

"I didn't want to see anybody in the bullpen," Arrieta said. "I wanted to finish what I started and be the guy to get the last out. That was the mindset.

"Sometimes that doesn't work out but with an aggressive mindset and the ability to make pitches in big situations, get a couple big double-play balls, have a nice four-run cushion, all those things help. Especially in an environment like this, you want to have the ball in your hand when the last out is made."

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Cubs.com Lester ready for battle vs. friend Lackey By Jordan Bastian

PITTSBURGH -- Cubs lefty Jon Lester considers Cardinals starter John Lackey one of his best friends in baseball. They pitched in the same rotation with the Red Sox, won a World Series together and have remained close since heading to separate teams.

Lester wanted to make one thing crystal clear on Wednesday, following Chicago's 4-0 victory over the Pirates in the National League Wild Card Game presented by Budweiser to advance to meet the Cardinals in the NL Division Series, which begins Friday at Busch Stadium (5:30 p.m. CT on TBS).

"I love him," Lester said. "But, come Friday, we're not friends anymore."

On Friday, Lester will face his friend and former teammate in Game 1 of the NLDS. They have pitched against each other before -- including earlier this season -- but they have never matched wits in a game of this magnitude. Lester knows he is in for a fight, even if it is from one of his close friends.

"He's one of the best competitors I've ever gotten to play with, I've ever gotten to be around," Lester said. "We've toed it up before we knew each other. We've toed it up after we've known each other. Now, we've just got a little more on the line."

Lester and Lackey had a little fun last time they squared off, too.

On July 6, Lester allowed two unearned runs over seven innings, but took a loss in a 6-0 defeat for the Cubs. Lackey spun seven scoreless innings that game. Lester did, however, come on top against Lackey in the batter's box, collecting an infield single that deflected off one of the Cardinals starter's legs.

That snapped an 0-for-66 slump that dated back to 2006 for Lester, who wound up with four hits (three against St. Louis) this season. Asked if that gave him an advantage for his upcoming battle with Lackey, Lester laughed.

"Yeah, I'm not too worried about my batting on Friday," he said. "I'll let the guys that do that a lot handle that problem."

Following that game in July, Lackey quipped that he would autograph the ball for Lester, along with the note: "You lost, too."

Lester and Lackey surely shared a few laughs over that moment later that night, too, as they met up and hung out at the Cardinals pitcher's house after the game.

"It was fun facing my boy, for sure," Lackey said back then.

Lackey was not available for comment on Wednesday, but Lester was sure he would echo what was said by the Cubs pitcher.

"It'll be fun," Lester said. "I didn't know he was pitching. That just adds to the excitement for me."

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Cubs.com Amid celebration, Cubs exuding confidence By Jordan Bastian

PITTSBURGH -- Jon Lester stood off to the side, discussing the daunting road ahead for the Cubs as his teammates celebrated all around him Wednesday night. With a decade in the Majors and a pair of World Series rings to his credit, the lefty is a grizzled veteran compared to Chicago's kids.

In the wake of their 4-0 Wild Card win over the Pirates, the Cubs now have a series that's been more than a century in the making. Next up are the 100-win Cardinals in the National League Division Series (Game 1 Friday at 5:30 p.m. CT on TBS), a team that has never faced the Cubs on the postseason stage despite more than 2,000 games between the teams in their long, storied history.

Lester firmly believes the Cubs' young, untested, yet talented roster is ready for the task at hand.

"I keep going back to it, these guys, nothing fazes them," Lester said. "They play above where they're at, as far as age and stature in this game."

In the Wild Card Game presented by Budweiser, rookie Kyle Schwarber certainly rose to the challenge, launching a home run and knocking in three to power Chicago's offense. The early work of the Cubs' lineup took the buzz out of Pittsburgh's crowd early. Chicago will look to do the same when welcomes the Cubs into a sea of red at Busch Stadium come Friday.

The pairing of the longtime division rivals will feature Lester taking on his friend and former teammate, Cardinals righty John Lackey in Game 1. The best-of-five series will present the chance to square off with the Dodgers or

Mets for the right to go to the World Series, which has featured St. Louis four times in the past 11 years and has not had the Cubs involved since 1945.

It'll be the Cardinal Way vs. the Hazleton Way.

"I'm really excited about it," said Cubs manager Joe Maddon, who hails from Hazleton, Pa. "I'm already excited about it. Everybody knows I grew up a Cardinal fan and I get this opportunity as a manager to work versus them in a Division Series in 2015. It's pretty awesome, man. And beyond that, I don't want to make it personal.

"It's about the players getting this opportunity to experience playoff baseball their first year out of the chute. That, down the road, is invaluable."

This year, the Cardinals came out on top in the season series against the Cubs, 11-8. That included a 7-3 record in St. Louis. That said, Chicago's second-half surge included improved play against their biggest rival, as the Cubs posted a 6-4 record against the Cardinals in their last three series.

"Another division rival," Cubs outfielder Dexter Fowler said. "That's the champs in our division, so we're trying to get to them and take this momentum down there."

Lackey went 2-0 with a 1.25 ERA in three starts against the Cubs this season. Lester -- a teammate of Lackey's with the Red Sox from 2010-14 -- posted a 1-3 record against St. Louis, but had a 2.59 ERA in five outings. In two of his losses, Lester encountered some tough luck, allowing only two earned runs in a combined 14 innings.

"Obviously, I know Lack," Lester said. "He's one of my better friends in baseball, better friends in life. I love his family, I love him, but come Friday we're not friends any more. And he'll say the same thing."

As Lester noted, Chicago's kids are undoubtedly confident.

"I feel like this group can go all the way," Schwarber said.

Schwarber was already imagining the scene in Wrigley Field for Game 3.

"We can't wait to see them," he said of Chicago's fans. "It's got to be loud. It's got to be loud."

Maddon is looking forward to that scene, too.

"I'm really excited," Maddon said. "I know our guys are about the opportunity to play in St. Louis and then bring it back to Wrigley. How about that? We get a chance to bring it back to Wrigley. That's pretty solid."

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Cubs.com Lester, Cubs face Cards in Game 1 in St. Louis By Anthony Castrovince

They've faced each other 2,363 times lo these many years. They made the Brock trade. They played the "Sandberg Game." They provided the McGwire and Sosa chase. They've stoked about as much red vs. blue passion as an Election Day.

But they've never met like this.

The Cardinals and Cubs will play a National League Division Series more than a century in the making, and it all gets started at 5:30 p.m. CT on Friday on TBS, when the former Red Sox ring-bearers, John Lackey and Jon Lester, oppose each other at Busch Stadium. Game 1 is game on for these two NL Central stalwarts. And if their regular- season series is any indication, we're in for a treat.

"It will be much like we've seen all year long," said Cards manager Mike Matheny. "Just a knockdown, drag out." The Cardinals, en route to their 100-win tally, took the season series, 11-8. But the Cubs won six of the last nine. Seven of the 19 meetings were decided by one run, and two more were decided by two runs.

This is a fascinating matchup between the NL Central's perennial power and its rising one. In dispatching a Pirates team all-too-accustomed to the silver showing in the Central, the young Cubs, led by bespectacled skipper Joe Maddon, have earned the right to go for the gold-bearer, a Cards team that has not only won three straight division titles, but advanced to four straight NL Championship Series.

"Everybody knows I grew up a Cardinal fan," said Maddon, "and I get this opportunity as manager to work versus them in a Division Series 2015. That's pretty awesome, man. Beyond that, I don't want to make it personal. It's about the players and our guys getting this opportunity. Our young guys. You have to understand, you have a bunch of young players getting this opportunity to experience playoff baseball their first year out of the chute. That down the road is invaluable."

The Cards, basically, are the kind of club Theo Epstein envisioned the Cubs to be -- a sustainable force in an otherwise fickle sport. And the Cubs know they have to get through the Cards if they're going to get back to the Fall Classic for the first time since 1945 (and, of course, win it for the first time since 1908). But these two clubs are built in decidedly different ways -- the Cards with the lowest staff ERA we've seen in nearly three decades and the Cubs with that unique stash of booming rookie bats not at all overwhelmed by their surroundings or their situation.

Because the Cubs had to survive the abnormally intense arrangement that is the one-and-done Wild Card Game presented by Budweiser, they come into this game with the momentum but without their ace arm. contender Jake Arrieta, whose performance against the Pirates might have been even more impressive than the no-hitter he tossed against the Dodgers in his amazing second-half surge, won't be ready until Game 3. But Lester, the playoff-tested vet who was brought in on a $155 million contract for assignments such as these, is a fine substitute.

And the 31-year-old Lester opposing the 36-year-old Lackey, whose resurgent season cost the Cards all of $500,000 because of a contractual clause related to past injuries, is a great storyline all its own. The two were instrumental in Boston's World Series triumph against the Cardinals just two falls ago, as they were responsible for three of the four wins combined. Another storyline: Yadi Molina. The Cards' beloved backstop has been out with a bum thumb since Sept. 20, but the Cards are optimistic he'll be good to go for Game 1.

Anyway, the personal storylines pale to the overall team tale -- the experienced October entry vs. the long- suffering franchise with a newly opened window.

Few rivalries in this sport can match the passion of Cards-Cubs, and that passion will be palpable in Game 1. Three things to know about this game

• The Cubs and Pirates had, shall we say, a difference of opinion in the Wild Card Game after Arrieta was plunked by a pitch from Tony Watson. There could be lingering tension in this series, too. Maddon called the Cardinals "vigilantes" for hitting Anthony Rizzo twice in the series opener when these two clubs met in late September. The Cubs hit three batters in a win the next day.

• The Game 1 start will be Lackey's 19th (and 22nd appearance) in a postseason game, dating back to the Angels' 2002 American League Division Series against the Yankees. Lackey's 3.08 postseason ERA in 117 innings is better than his 3.92 career ERA in 2,481 1/3 innings. Among teams he faced multiple times this season, he fared better against the Cubs (1.25 ERA) than any other club.

• Lester will be making his 13th start and 15th appearance in a postseason setting, dating back to Boston's 2007 AL Championship Series against the Indians. He, too, has taken his game to another level on this stage, on measure, with a 2.57 ERA in October and a 3.55 mark elsewhere. This is a tough matchup for the Cards in the sense that they had the third-lowest OPS (.662) in baseball against left-handed pitching this season. But Lester was just 1-3 with one no-decision against them despite a respectable 2.59 ERA and 9.8 strikeouts per nine innings in those five starts. It's worth noting that the Cards swiped 12 percent of their total stolen bases this season off Lester.

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Cubs.com 10 cool facts about Arrieta's Wild Card shutout By Paul Casella

Jake Arrieta continued his historically dominant run on Wednesday night, spinning a shutout in the Cubs' winner- take-all game against the Pirates.

The National League Cy Young Award candidate was in top form in the NL Wild Card Game presented by Budweiser, not just stifling Bucs hitters in the Cubs' 4-0 victory, but making more history in the process. As if Arrieta's performance on the mound wasn't enough, he also contributed both at the plate and on the basepaths. With the win, the Cubs advanced to face the Cardinals in the NL Division Series, which begins on Friday at 6:30 p.m. ET on TBS.

Arrieta also received more than enough offensive support from his teammates, while the Cubs continued a Wild Card Game trend of road teams emerging victorious. Here's a look at 10 of the top facts and figures to come out of Wednesday's game.

• Arrieta became the first pitcher to fire a postseason shutout while striking out at least 10 batters and walking zero. The previous high for strikeouts in a no-walk shutout was nine, set by Cole Hamels in Game 3 of the 2010 NL Division Series.

• The 11 strikeouts also match the Cubs' franchise record, originally set by Kerry Wood in Game 1 of the 2003 NLDS against the Braves. Wood tallied 11 strikeouts, while holding Atlanta to two runs off two hits and five walks over 7 1/3 innings in a 4-2 victory. It's only the third time in Cubs postseason history that a pitcher has tallied double-digit strikeouts, with the other such effort coming courtesy of a 10-strikeout performance by in Game 5 of the .

• This marked the second straight year that the Pirates were shut out in the NL Wild Card Game, as they were blanked 8-0 by Madison Bumgarner and the Giants at PNC Park last season. The back-to-back mark the 18th time a team has been shut out in consecutive postseason games -- and the first since the Tigers were held scoreless in Games 2 and 3 of the . Only two teams -- the 1905 Athletics and '66 Dodgers -- have been shut out in three straight postseason games.

• Along with tossing another gem on the mound, Arrieta became just the 10th pitcher to be hit by a pitch in a postseason game. Though it's a rare occurrence, it's now happened twice in as many postseasons, as Cardinals starter John Lackey was also plunked by a pitch in Game 3 of the 2014 NL Championship Series. Prior to Lackey, a pitcher hadn't been hit by a pitch in the postseason since Hall of Famer was hit by Tommy John in the 1977 NLCS.

• After being hit, Arrieta then promptly swiped second base to become just the fifth pitcher -- and the first since Cliff Lee in 2009 -- to steal a base in postseason play. Along with Arrieta and Lee, the others to do so are (one each in 1991, '92 and '95), Billy Loes ('52) and ('08).

• Dexter Fowler became just the seventh player -- and only the second NL player -- to both homer and steal a base in a winner-take-all postseason game. The others to do so are Curtis Granderson (2012 American League DS), Daniel Descalso ('12 NLDS), Dustin Pedroia ('08 ALCS), ('04 ALCS), Ray Durham ('02 ALDS) and Chris Chambliss (1976 ALCS). Fowler is the first Cubs player to accomplish the feat.

• Fowler was also the first leadoff hitter to collect at least three hits and a home run in a winner-take-all postseason game since Pedroia in Game 7 of the 2007 ALCS. Pedroia went 3-for-5 with a homer and five RBIs to help the Red Sox eliminate the Indians with an 11-2 victory.

• At the other end of the spectrum, Bucs first baseman Pedro Alvarez went 0-for-3 with three strikeouts after entering the game as a pinch-hitter in the bottom of the third inning. By striking out three times off the bench, Alvarez joined (1971 NLCS) and Eric Bruntlett (2005 NLDS) as the only players to strike out at least three times in a postseason game they did not start.

• The Cubs' victory snapped a nine-game postseason losing streak for the club, tied for the sixth-longest postseason streak all-time. Their last postseason win had come in Game 4 of the 2003 NLCS against the Marlins. Chicago had been outscored 57-21 in its nine postseason contests since.

• Arrieta finished the night with a game score of 90, the highest in a winner-take-all postseason game. The previous high was 89, set by Tigers starter Justin Verlander in his four-hit, 11-strikeout shutout against the A's in Game 5 of the 2012 ALDS.

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ESPNChicago.com Led by Kyle Schwarber, Cubs rookies answer every question in wild-card win By Jesse Rogers

PITTSBURGH – Dubbed "Bam Bam" by his hitting coach, Chicago Cubs rookie Kyle Schwarber lived up to his nickname, silencing any doubters who believed the Cubs were too young to succeed in their first postseason.

Schwarber sent a ball far over the right-field wall for a two-run home run off Pittsburgh Pirates starter Gerrit Cole two innings after driving in the first run of the game in the Cubs' wild 4-0 win over the Pirates in Wednesday night’s National League wild-card contest.

“That was one of the prettiest sounds I heard in a long time,” general manager Jed Hoyer said after the game in a champagne-soaked locker room.

Schwarber, 22, is known for his “loud” home runs as well as his maturity both on and off the field, which is a common trait for these young Cubs. The big hit by their most recent rookie to make his debut this season was a statement to the rest of baseball: The moment won’t be too big for a team full of young players.

“The nerves really hit last night when I was watching the American League wild-card game because I realized that was going to be us, and in less than 24 hours,” Schwarber said. “Then coming out to the ballpark there are butterflies, and listening to the national anthem and listening to the crowd roar, there is going to be butterflies.

"But once that first pitch happens, it's game time. It's time to go. Everything starts to slow down from then. You feel so sped up when you're spectating, and then once you step on to the field, you slow it down.”

For the rookies, it’s about preparation. The moment wasn’t too big because Schwarber knew what he wanted to do. The Cubs' game plan against Cole was to lay off the inside stuff and make the righty throw pitches over the plate. After twice getting behind both leadoff man Dexter Fowler and Schwarber, the Cubs had Cole where they wanted him.

“We executed the game plan to a tee today,” Schwarber said.

After Schwarber’s bomb, the Cubs simply needed to play defense behind the hottest pitcher on the planet. And again the rookies came up big as shortstop Addison Russell quickly forgot about a hot smash he couldn’t handle to grab another one two pitches later and start an inning-ending double play with the bases loaded in the sixth. The game was essentially over right there after the biggest play of the night.

“It meant everything to me,” Russell said of getting another chance. “You have to turn the page, you have to turn the page. [Starling] Marte barreled that ball, and I was able to grab it, and Starlin [Castro] made a beautiful turn.”

There’s more. Another rookie, Kris Bryant, started in left field then moved to third base just in time to snag a screamer that almost certainly would have gotten past the smaller Tommy La Stella, who started the game at the hot corner. Later, Bryant grabbed a hard-hit grounder to start a pretty 5-4-3 double play to end the seventh. The rookies came through in the big moments each time. It’s not a surprise Cubs manager Joe Maddon steered the postgame discussion to those guys.

“But defensively, man -- the first play Addison had a chance to make that ball was scalded and the second one even harder than that,” the manager said. “And how about the plays by K.B. [Bryant] at third, and the game called by Miggy [Miguel Montero]? All that stuff was exciting. So when I watch a game like that I'm focusing on those other ancillary kind of components, and our guys played a good game of baseball tonight.”

It might be surprising to see such poise out of young players -- or, as Hoyer called them, "young veterans" -- but this isn’t by accident. The benefit of having mature rookies is telling them something that can be immediately processed. And then of course there is the preparation. It’s really all that matters to Maddon.

“I really believe the process is fearless,” Maddon said. “If you're really focusing on outcome and just winning, then you can become fearful. But if you just focus on the process, the process is fearless. From Day 1, we talked process more than anything.”

The Cubs get it -- especially the rookies. They bought in a long time ago. So when they get to St. Louis in the early morning hours on Thursday in advance of their division series against the Cardinals, they’ll have an answer ready to the question they heard over and over again in Pittsburgh.

Can the young players handle the big playoff moments?

That question was answered in the affirmative Wednesday.

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ESPNChicago.com Wild wild-card win sends a message: Don't mess with the Cubs By Jayson Stark

PITTSBURGH -- They couldn't just win a postseason game for the first time in 12 years. They're the Chicago Cubs.

They couldn't just let the story begin and end with Jake Arrieta summoning his inner Bob Gibson-meets-Madison Bumgarner to fill up another scoreboard with zeros. They're the Cubs.

So we can't tell the epic tale of their unforgettable, 4-0 bludgeoning of a tremendous, 98-win team from Pittsburgh in the National League wild-card game by merely talking baseball. Oh, no.

Not on a night when benches emptied, choke holds were applied, Gatorade coolers were attacked and the most unhittable pitcher in baseball was surrounded by U.N. peacekeeping forces wearing Cubs hats.

Because here's what we learned Wednesday night at rocking, rolling, electrified PNC Park: Don't mess with these Cubs. Literally.

"You don't see that stuff happen in playoff baseball too much," said Jon Lester, after a wild evening that was part Jake Arrieta Masterpiece Theater and part "Wrestlemania." "I know people back in the day used to say that getting into fights or whatever used to bring their teams closer. But I don't think we need to be any closer. When you look around, the chemistry on this team is not really a problem."

Since he then stopped to look around, so did we. And it was quite a scene. If you ever wondered what sort of party your buddies might throw if you'd all waited 107 years to unleash it, this was it. Laughs. Hugs. Cigars. Literally hundreds of bottles of Korbel Brut, followed by an emergency case of Royal Cuvee, being sprayed in all directions. And on and on it went, into the night, for well over an hour.

OK, sold. Chemistry on this team is not a problem.

"Getting in a fight, I don't think that helps us," Lester went on, relishing one more moment that made him thankful to be a Cub. "But at the same time, I don't think it hurts us. We're going to stand up for our guys. And we're going to make sure that the other teams know we're going to stand up for our guys."

Well, especially if it was one particular guy. A guy named Jacob J. Arrieta, who is acting these days as if he isn't planning to give up another run until, like, mid-December.

On his way to a historic, 11-strikeout, zero-walk, four-hit shutout, Arrieta still managed to plunk two Pirates hitters with pitches. Francisco Cervelli got drilled by a 94 mph, up-and-in heat wave in the fifth inning. Then, an inning later, Josh Harrison took a clearly unintentional breaking ball near the shoulder. And if that was the ying, the yang was right around the corner.

So up marched Arrieta with two outs and nobody on in the top of the seventh to face reliever Tony Watson. And what unfolded over the next three minutes was a story better suited for Ring Magazine than the ESPN.com MLB page.

Watson's first pitch was a 93 mph fastball into Arrieta's derriere. Arrieta had a few thoughts he wanted to convey about that. Catcher Francisco Cervelli voiced several thoughts of his own. Watson stalked toward them. And next thing they all knew, the infield got kind of crowded.

"You know what was really awesome?" said Cubs special assistant Ryan Dempster with a laugh. "That, when that happened, our entire bench was out on the field before the Pirates even got out of the dugout. It was like, `Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You want to hit Jake Arrieta? What's your problem?'"

No need to run through the entire blow-by-blow. But at one point, Cubs catcher David Ross actually grabbed the throat of the Pirates' Sean Rodriguez, who then began firing haymakers in no particular direction. Which resulted in Rodriguez's getting ejected from a game he was already out of. Whereupon he took his delight out on an innocent Gatorade cooler that had no idea who Jake Arrieta even was.

Rodriguez portrayed himself afterward as pretty much the innocent victim, saying: "Somebody grabs you by the neck, do you really need an invitation [to start swinging] at that point?"

Hmmm. Decent alibi. But upon cross-examination, Ross pleaded innocence himself.

"He came charging at me," he said of Rodriguez. "I was trying to break it up, and I think he was, too. When he came at me, he put his hands on my chest, and my hands went straight to his throat. I didn't mean any bad intent. It just happened. It all happened so fast."

But as wild and crazy as it looked, there wasn't much doubt when it was over what got the Cubs so fired up. That was Jake Arrieta out there. And if there was a way they could seal him in protective, unbreakable glass until his next start, they'd be all for it.

"I'm trying to keep guys off our starting pitcher," said David Ross. "It's late in the game. You've got a high level of intensity going on. It's a crazy environment. We've got a four-run lead. The last thing I want to do is fight. But I don't want anybody messing with the guy who's dominating the game."

And that would be because all Jake Arrieta does these days is dominate every game. He's on a roll right now that feels even more rare than a Cubs World Series parade. To say it's historic doesn't even capture it. It's practically unprecedented:

In this game, he became the first pitcher ever -- right, ever -- to throw a postseason shutout with double-digit strikeouts and zero walks. Look it up.

He also became just the fourth pitcher ever to strike out 10 or more and throw a shutout in a winner-take-all postseason game. Perhaps you've heard of the other three to do it: in the , Justin Verlander in the 2012 ALDS and Madison Bumgarner in last year's wild-card game in this very same park.

Over his final nine starts of the regular season, Arrieta went 8-0, with a 0.27 ERA and a .132 opponent batting average. And the Elias Sports Bureau tells us that since baseball began keeping track of earned runs over a century ago, no pitcher has ever had an ERA or opponent average that low of a batting average over a span of that many starts. And after this game, those numbers sit at 0.24 and .132. Unreal.

Since Aug. 1, 269 pitchers have allowed at least four earned runs in an inning. Meanwhile, Arrieta has also allowed four earned runs -- in two months. Over 13 starts. His 0.37 ERA over that span is the lowest in history by any pitcher, over that many starts, since the invention of earned runs.

And if the Cubs are starting to get the impression he's the closest thing there is to unbeatable, this might be why: Over Arrieta's past 14 starts, they're 14-0. Over his past 19 starts, they're 18-1. Is that even possible?

So you can understand why, when the Cubs found a way to score a run Wednesday night before the wild-card game was three hitters old, they were thinking life was good. After all, it's now been three weeks since their starting pitcher has given up a run. That last run was 31 innings ago, in case you'd lost track.

"I played with last year," said Arrieta's rotation mate, Dan Haren. "And I thought that was the most amazing season I've ever seen. It's hard for me to compare because I've only been here for two months, since the trading deadline. But since I got here, he's given up four earned runs. So it's not just me who's never seen anything like this. Nobody has ever seen anything like it."

But you might be shocked to learn that it wasn't even that shutout that Arrieta was most proud of Wednesday night. One pitch after the brouhaha subsided and action resumed in the seventh inning, he took off for second and roared in with the fifth stolen base by a pitcher in postseason history.

"I might like that more than the CG," he chuckled afterward. "So I'm going to try and stack up some more against St. Louis."

So Yadier Molina, you're officially on alert. Jake Arrieta is coming. An awesome Cardinals-Cubs NLDS is just over the horizon. And now everybody knows what that means:

Don't mess with the Cubs.

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ESPNChicago.com Jake Arrieta goes the distance as Cubs advance to NLDS By Jesse Rogers

PITTSBURGH – Chicago Cubs starter Jake Arrieta pitched a complete-game shutout, extending his scoreless streak to 31 innings, as the Cubs blanked the Pittsburgh Pirates 4-0 in the National League wild-card game Wednesday.

He got support from rookie Kyle Schwarber, who quieted a raucous Pirates crowd with a mammoth, two-run home run to right field that left the park entirely in the third inning after he had an RBI single in the first. The Cubs never looked back as Arrieta did what he does, though he hit two batters, leading to retaliation as Tony Watson hit him as he batted in the seventh. The benches cleared, there was some pushing and shoving, and Pirates infielder Sean Rodriguez was ejected.

Arrieta’s only jam came in the sixth, when he loaded the bases, but a hard-hit ground ball to Addison Russell turned into the inning-ending double play, as second baseman Starlin Castro made a nice turn. Arrieta also induced a double play to end the seventh as well. He gave up four hits and struck out 11.

Thumbs up: Schwarber’s playoff debut was memorable. His home run was a 430-foot rocket, embodying his nickname of “Bam Bam.” According to research from ESPN Stats and Information, Schwarber is the second- youngest player with at least a home run and three RBIs in his postseason debut. He’s also the first rookie in Cubs history with two hits, including a HR, in a postseason game.

Dexter Fowler had three hits after batting just .204 in September. He was on base twice for Schwarber's RBI hits, then homered to center.

Thumbs down: No one else in the Cubs' lineup did much at the plate -- not that they needed it -- as they managed just two hits outside of Fowler and Schwarber.

What’s next: The Cubs have a date in the division series with another rival, and the team with the best record in the league, the St. Louis Cardinals. The Cubs had trouble with the Cardinals earlier in the season but beat them two out of three in a pair of September series. The Cardinals won the season series 11-8 but have lost six of their past nine meetings with the Cubs. Jon Lester will start Game 1 on Friday.

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ESPNChicago.com Anthony Rizzo: 'We have a lot to prove' By Jesse Rogers

PITTSBURGH – Hours before his first career playoff game, Chicago Cubs first baseman Anthony Rizzo was trying not to think of the storied -- and sometimes tortured -- history of the Cubs, especially in the postseason.

“There's a lot of people that have put everything into this organization and this city, and they call the city of Chicago home,” Rizzo said Wednesday afternoon. “We want to make them proud. They left the jersey a lot better when they were done playing.

“I know Ernie would be really proud of this team, Ernie Banks, and it means a lot for them. It means a lot for the fans too. But us players really don't put a lot of thought into that. We're ready to play today and that's our main focus.”

The Cubs haven’t won a playoff game since Game 5 of the NLCS back in 2003. Since then it’s eight straight losses including two 3-game sweeps in 2007 and 2008.

“Yeah, this is a really exciting time for Chicago,” Rizzo continued. “Obviously what the Blackhawks have done over the past five, six years with all those championships, and me being there for two of them, just seeing what the city was like when they won, it's something that you just wanted to be at. It's where you want to be. And then winning this year is another example of being out around the city, hearing people talk, it's exciting to be part of this in this city, in Chicago, is something special."

Back in January, Rizzo nearly guaranteed the Cubs would make the postseason. The team went on to win 97 games, the most since 2008. An elimination contest, which the wild card game presents, means playing one more game in the season or moving on to a playoff series. The Cubs have accomplished some good things in 2015 but a loss on Wednesday will have simply meant an extra night of baseball.

“We have a lot to prove,” he stated. “We haven't proven anything yet. We are young. We have a lot of talent, but we have to go out there and take it.” PITTSBURGH – Hours before his first career playoff game, Chicago Cubs first baseman Anthony Rizzo was trying not to think of the storied -- and sometimes tortured -- history of the Cubs, especially in the postseason.

“There's a lot of people that have put everything into this organization and this city, and they call the city of Chicago home,” Rizzo said Wednesday afternoon. “We want to make them proud. They left the jersey a lot better when they were done playing.

“I know Ernie would be really proud of this team, Ernie Banks, and it means a lot for them. It means a lot for the fans too. But us players really don't put a lot of thought into that. We're ready to play today and that's our main focus.”

The Cubs haven’t won a playoff game since Game 5 of the NLCS back in 2003. Since then it’s eight straight losses including two 3-game sweeps in 2007 and 2008.

“Yeah, this is a really exciting time for Chicago,” Rizzo continued. “Obviously what the Blackhawks have done over the past five, six years with all those championships, and me being there for two of them, just seeing what the city was like when they won, it's something that you just wanted to be at. It's where you want to be. And then winning this year is another example of being out around the city, hearing people talk, it's exciting to be part of this in this city, in Chicago, is something special."

Back in January, Rizzo nearly guaranteed the Cubs would make the postseason. The team went on to win 97 games, the most since 2008. An elimination contest, which the wild card game presents, means playing one more game in the season or moving on to a playoff series. The Cubs have accomplished some good things in 2015 but a loss on Wednesday will have simply meant an extra night of baseball.

“We have a lot to prove,” he stated. “We haven't proven anything yet. We are young. We have a lot of talent, but we have to go out there and take it.”

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ESPNChicago.com Cubs wild-card lineup: Tommy La Stella a key player By Jesse Rogers

PITTSBURGH -- Chicago Cubs manager Joe Maddon is shaking up his lineup a little for the National League wild- card game. Lefty Tommy La Stella is playing third base and batting in a key spot in the order, No. 5, behind sluggers Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo.

La Stella, 26, played in just 33 games this season because of a nagging oblique injury. He’s only started six times at third base in his career. He had just seven strikeouts in 75 plate appearances, which is one reason the Cubs are counting on him behind Bryant and Rizzo.

"Tommy is the most underrated hitter on our team," Maddon said. "We wanted to include him also today."

If they’re pitched around, the feeling is La Stella will “move the ball,” as Maddon likes to say. It’s also the way he describes Starlin Castro, who’s batting sixth. La Stella and Castro could be two key players if those ahead of him are getting on-base.

La Stella also handles fastballs well, as he’s a .292 career hitter off that pitch. Pirates starter Gerrit Cole is a power pitcher, though La Stella is just 1-for-6 off him.

The move of La Stella to third base pushes rookies Bryant and Kyle Schwarber to left and right field, respectively. Cubs starter Jake Arrieta is hitting ninth as Maddon no longer feels rookie Addison Russell needs protection from the top of the order. The lineup is very similar to the one behind Arrieta the last time he pitched on Friday in Milwaukee; the difference was La Stella batted ninth that day.

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ESPNChicago.com Five things you need to know about the 2015 Cubs By Jesse Rogers

With a young core and a strong one-two punch at the top of the rotation, the Chicago Cubs are back in the playoffs for the first time since 2008.

Here’s what you need to about these Cubs:

Jake Arrieta is on a historic run: The 29-year old righty is the ace of the team and in the midst of a historic roll, having produced the lowest second-half ERA (0.75) in the history of the game. He ended the regular season on a 22-inning scoreless streak and got the win in 22 of the Cubs' 97 victories. Many view him as the possible Madison Bumgarner of 2015. Expect the Cubs to use Arrieta as often as possible if they win Wednesday’s wild-card game, which he will start. Arrieta has a devastating array of pitches and held opponents to a .185 batting average, tops in all of baseball.

Youth at the forefront: At any point in a game, Cubs manager Joe Maddon can employ up to five rookie position players on a team loaded with young talent, led by rookie of the year favorite Kris Bryant. When 21-year-old Addison Russell takes the field Wednesday, he’ll be the fifth-youngest shortstop to start a playoff game. Then there’s 2014 top draft pick Kyle Schwarber, who burst on the scene mid-season just as the team took off. Huge Cuban outfielder Jorge Soler comes off the bench, while Javier Baez is a defensive whiz at three infield positions. Add young veterans Anthony Rizzo and Starlin Castro, and the Cubs are loaded for the postseason and the future.

Maddon made his presence felt: The Cubs' first-year manager is a master communicator who led his young team to a 46-19 finish after it was swept and no-hit by the at home in late July. But his best job of managing came in the first couple months, when the Cubs held their collective heads above water while Maddon learned his team and his young players got their feet wet. The Cubs were four games over. 500 at the end of April, when they legitimately should have been four under. They amazingly never had a below-.500 month this season, and they’ve won every game they have played so far in October. Maddon had a big hand in the Cubs' ascension.

Lots of walks ... and lots of strikeouts: The Cubs do both on offense – a lot. They led the National League in both free passes and strikeouts this season. The result is a lot of men on base but many stranded. The Cubs were dead last in bringing a runner home from third with fewer than two outs, but they scored enough in many other ways -- home runs, for example -- to keep that from really affecting their record. However, it could be an issue if opposing pitching and cooler weather keep balls from leaving the park. The Cubs worked on some bunting plays during their series over the weekend to prepare for some small ball. It’s hard to know if they can pull that off.

Comfortable home or away: The Cubs had a one-game difference in their home and road win totals. In fact, they have more wins on the road than either of the two teams ahead of them in the division. That was key for a young team, as the Cubs were never overwhelmed by the grind of the season. They actually hit better and scored more runs on the road, but that might be due to Wrigley Field's playing bigger than usual most of the season, as only August brought winds blowing out. Either way, the Cubs have proven they can handle themselves wherever they play. That’s a good thing because they won’t have home-field advantage in any series if they get through the trip to Pittsburgh and move on in the postseason.

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ESPNChicago.com Cubs' difference-maker? Might be David Ross (and his .176 average) By Wayne Drehs

For five months, the backup catcher struggling to hit .190 watched the All-Star first baseman play. He celebrated the towering home runs, marveled at the Gold Glove defense and the way Anthony Rizzo's individual successes lifted the rest of the Chicago Cubs. But over the course of the season, David Ross also came to know the rare moments when he didn't think Rizzo was giving his all. And for some reason, the finale of a critical, mid-September series in PNC Park against the Pittsburgh Pirates, the team the Cubs were chasing for the right to host the National League wild-card game, was one of those moments.

Ross wasn't going to let it slide.

A 14-year major league veteran, Ross understands as well as anyone the challenges of getting up for every game - especially a Thursday matinee at the end of an eight-game road trip. But he also realized Rizzo's importance to the psyche of the clubhouse. If Rizzo felt he could take a day off and coast, others in the clubhouse might feel the same. Ross couldn't let it happen.

With the bases loaded and nobody out in the first inning, Rizzo rolled over a 1-1 pitch from Charlie Morton, a pitcher with a career 4.54 ERA, grounding into a double play. Morton is "a pitcher I would expect [Rizzo] to have a good day against," Ross said. Two innings later, Rizzo walked with one out and advanced to third on a double by Kris Bryant. But Ross thought he could have scored. The inning ended with Rizzo stranded on third. In the dugout later, Rizzo asked if Ross thought he could have scored. That's when the 38-year-old sounded off.

"You want my honest opinion?" Ross said. "I don't think you came ready to play today. I don't see the intensity in your game. I don't see the intensity in your at-bats. I don't think you're bringing it."

Rizzo didn't like what he was hearing. Ross had played in less than half the Cubs' games. He'd struck out twice as many times as he'd gotten a hit. Like most team sports, a baseball player's clubhouse clout is generally tied to his on-field performance. But Rizzo respectfully listened to Ross. He took it all in. And two innings later, facing Morton for a third time, Rizzo crushed a 1-0 pitch into the right field bleachers to give the Cubs a 5-4 lead in a game they eventually won 9-6. After his home run trot, Rizzo made a beeline to Ross, planted his head into the catcher's chest and started punching him in the gut.

"I started screaming at him," Rizzo said. "It's one of those things ... [Ross] doesn't demand respect -- he earns it. He lets you know in a nice way, and he'll get on you in a rough way if he needs to. I tell him all the time I just want to go out and prove to him I can bring it everyday."

What is it about Ross that made Rizzo listen? How exactly did a 38-year-old backup catcher who has hit .190 the past three seasons become the Cubs' clubhouse leader? Why is Ross the player manager Joe Maddon refers to as a "force multiplier," someone who "brings out courage and strength in other people" and is an irreplaceable piece of the 2015 Cubs?

"It's hard to put into words," Rizzo said. "It's something that the guys that sit behind computers and make up all these new stats can't make a stat for."

The Cubs are the seventh straight winning team for which Ross has played. Wednesday night's wild-card game against Pittsburgh will mark the fourth time in the past six years that he has appeared in the playoffs. That includes 2013, when he caught the final out of the World Series for the . It isn't just dumb luck. Beyond his talents as one of the game's premier defensive receivers (he has spent most of the past three years as Jon Lester's personal catcher), Ross is one of those veteran clubhouse personalities whose leadership, character and competitiveness bring teams together and propel them to success. He is "the best I've ever seen at it," Maddon said. Baseball's every move is dissected, analyzed and assigned a statistical quotient, yet Ross is a maddening conundrum. His influence is impossible to quantify yet equally difficult to ignore.

On a baby-faced team that has started five rookies (three of four infielders were born in the '90s), Ross is the bald, salt-and-pepper-bearded man teaching the young Cubs how to win. When the organization tries to snap a nine- game postseason losing streak against the Pirates on Wednesday, Ross will be the veteran the kids turn to in the most pressure-packed situations -- even if he isn't in the game.

"He's been there," Cubs rookie Kyle Schwarber said. "He's caught the last pitch of the World Series. He's won a ring. He's been a part of one-run games in the playoffs. He's special. He's something this team needs. And a lot of people on the outside don't know it."

Ross has built his baseball philosophy around one guiding principle: accountability. He has played for seven teams in 14 years, learned from clubhouse leaders and squashed clubhouse cancers. He knows how the game can beat you down, how failure is guaranteed more often than success. He tries to pass on those lessons in pursuit of winning.

"If I go out there and give a 50 percent effort, there should be somebody to call me out," Ross said. "Otherwise, you're going to be playing for nothing in September, and everybody is going to be miserable. I know stats can be selfish, and some guys don't believe in chemistry. That's fine. I'm sure teams have won without good chemistry -- but none of the teams I've been on."

Ross' camaraderie was on display again a few days before the end of the regular season, prior to a game against the . Lester was taking hacks in the cage as Ross looked on from third. After watching him crush a pitch into the empty bleachers in right, Ross noticed Lester alter his stance for the next batting practice pitch.

"No, no, no!" Ross bellowed from third. "You start hitting the ball hard, so now you change your stance and try to get more power? C'mon, now. No, no, no. That's something I would do. You know you don't want to hit like me."

Everyone chuckled. But the jab had a point: Don't give up an at-bat. Not even in batting practice.

Lester is as familiar with Ross' shtick as anyone. In May 2014, when they were both still with the Red Sox, Lester entered the eighth inning with 12 strikeouts in a start against Oakland. Then he walked Derrick Norris on four not- even-close pitches. Ross grabbed a new ball from the umpire, flipped off his mask and began barking his way to the mound.

"Are you done?" he chirped at Lester. "Are you quitting? Do we need to get somebody else out here?"

"He kept yelling at me and yelling at me -- and everyone in the park knew he was yelling at me," Lester said. "But that's what I needed. I pulled it together and went on to punch out the side for 15 strikeouts."

Cubs management had heard stories such as that when they signed Ross over the winter. They were rebuilding the organization with a blend of young talent and high character, knowing all too well the pressures likely to come with trying to win the World Series as a member of the Cubs. Lester, the team's prized $155 million acquisition, pleaded with the Chicago brass to sign his friend and former Boston teammate.

"You cannot overstate the chemistry thing and what he does to help your team win," Lester said.

After a two-hour lunch with Ross during last year's MLB playoffs, Rizzo came away equally impressed. "He was exactly what we needed for our clubhouse," he said.

Just before Christmas, the Cubs offered Ross a two-year, $5 million contract with an assurance that they valued his off-the-field intangibles as much as his on-the-field talent. "That meant that when I was hitting a buck eighty, they weren't going to say, 'Let's get this guy outta here,'" Ross said. "And that meant a lot."

The first time Ross walked into the Cubs clubhouse for spring training, he felt the way he always does with a new team -- like a "nervous wreck," he says. Brought in to build chemistry, he wondered if he would fit in. He worried how he would be welcomed by Wellington Castillo, who caught 110 games for the Cubs in 2014 but likely knew his days in Chicago were numbered after the team signed Ross and traded for Miguel Montero. But Castillo handled the potential awkwardness like a professional and, like Ross, focused on getting better and helping the team win.

So Ross did what he always does: He learned everyone's name as quickly as he could. He said hello to everyone each morning in the clubhouse. He refused to judge anyone on his reputation. And he used one of his greatest tools, poking fun at his own baseball failures, to endear himself to his teammates.

"I'm not a tough guy," he said. "I'm not a great player. I'm not too big to say, 'You're better than I am. I'm glad you're on my team so I don't have to face you anymore.'"

As Rizzo said, the element players such as Ross bring to a team can't be analyzed in any concrete way -- at least not yet. Cubs Vice President of Player Development Jason McLeod admits the team has tried a number of psychology and personality tests over the years, but the front office still believes the best way to know a player is through human scouting. In a 2010 interview with The Seattle Times, the founder of sabermetrics, Bill James, drew an analogy between baseball and any work place: All of us work better if we like the people with whom we are working.

"Baseball would be quite a remarkable activity if it was the one place in the world where your coworkers didn't have any impact on how productive you were," James said.

Royals outfielder Jonny Gomes, who, like Ross, has a reputation as a clubhouse leader, agrees. Gomes came up with the Rays under Maddon and has played in four straight postseasons with the A's, Red Sox and now Royals, who open their divisional-round playoff series Thursday.

"Here's this game where we have statistics that are almost like geometry," Gomes said. "But there's not one stat on this. Nothing. No 40 percent this or X minus frickin' whatever. But you better believe that when you're on second and your buddy is up to the plate, you're going to be grinding to get in for him."

Ross forged his leadership abilities, as well as his abilities to make friends and adapt to new situations, as a young boy growing up in a rough, racially charged section of Tallahassee, Florida. In Tallahassee, Ross' quest to become a better baseball player led him to hang out with an older crowd.

"If I wanted to play, I had to step up and fit in," he said. The same held true in college at Auburn and Florida.

Once in the major leagues, Ross learned how he wanted to treat people. "When you're a rookie and a veteran is worried about you taking his job and is hazing you -- you remember how that feels," Ross said. "I don't want to make people feel that way. I want to win. You can't put guys down or make them feel like crap if we need them to win."

Over the course of the 2015 season, that positive, friendly, team-first approach helped Ross establish himself as the most respected veteran voice in the Cubs' clubhouse. In the games in which he didn't play -- there were 90 of those this year -- he high-fived teammates each time they came in and out of the dugout. He applauded great plays. He pointed out mistakes. He tried to help rookies such as Bryant, Schwarber, Addison Russell, Jorge Soler and Javier Baez cope with the ups and downs of a major league season.

"We can't have our third baseman down on himself because he hasn't had a hit in a week," Ross said. "I would tell them, '0-for-14? That's it? Let me tell you about my 0-for-21 with what felt like 37 strikeouts.'"

Maddon loved how it all worked. The manager is a longtime proponent of character and chemistry, believing those are the attributes that push you on the days when talent alone isn't enough. In the eight-month grind of a major league season, when players spend far more time with their teammates than with their families, Maddon tries to keep things light by bringing magicians and animals into the clubhouse.

"When you are not on top of your game, you need this other thing that helps push you over these weak-minded moments when negativity starts creeping in, when the momentum starts going in the wrong direction," Maddon said.

That is precisely what Maddon had in mind in the final inning of a dreadful, three-game sweep by the Phillies in late July at Wrigley Field. Three straight losses at home to the worst team in baseball -- one of which resulted in the Cubs' being no-hit for the first time in 50 years -- saw the team's odds of playing in the postseason plummet from 70 to 43 percent. Trailing 11-4 in the ninth inning of the series finale, Maddon sent Ross out to pitch. Ross had thrown a 1-2-3 inning against the Mets in May, but he isn't particularly fond of pitching, fearful the opposition will smack one of his 70 mph meatballs right back at his face. Even so, Ross understood the importance of saving an inning for the bullpen. Without hesitation, he took the ball.

Ross threw eight pitches that inning, none of which exceeded 72 mph. It didn't matter. The Phillies only managed a harmless fly ball to left and a pair of grounders to short. Ross retired the side in another 1-2-3. Fans who had not yet left finally had something to cheer. And when Ross stepped to the plate to lead off the bottom of the ninth, they chanted his name. "Forever Young," his walk-up song, blasted on the stadium speakers.

On a 2-2 count, Ross took a hanging 88 mph slider and parked it in the left-field bleachers for his first home run as a Cub. Although the scoreboard read Phillies 11, Cubs 5, Wrigley erupted.

"You would have thought it was the go-ahead homer," Lester said. "The place went nuts. He went nuts. We all went nuts."

The Cubs lost by that same score, but in the aftermath, there was less talk about all that was wrong with the team and more talk about what Ross had done. Maddon compared him to Babe Ruth, and the rookies received the below-the-surface message: There is no need to panic. Everything is going to be fine.

Beginning the next night with a 9-8 walk-off victory over Colorado, the Cubs won 16 of their next 18 to climb from five games over .500 to 18 over. Ross's ninth-inning heroics and the levity they created are at least partly to thank.

"Absolutely, that turned everything around," Maddon said. "Because he's such a leader and so respected, it became a galvanizing moment for the group."

Four days after the Cubs' mid-September victory over the Pirates in which Rizzo responded to Ross' challenge by hitting the home run that gave Chicago the lead, some 40,920 fans were crammed into Wrigley Field, standing on their feet and roaring. The bases were loaded with nobody out in the eighth inning of a series finale against rival St. Louis. The Cubs were one base hit away from completing a rally that would give them a lead and likely a three- game sweep of the best team in baseball.

On the top step of the Cubs dugout, Ross took his customary spot atop a miniature stool. He had caught seven innings of six-hit, four-run ball before being lifted for a pinch hitter in the seventh. He had gone 0-for-2 on the day, which dropped his batting average to .189 and all but confirmed he would fail to hit above .200 for the second straight season.

The series, for both teams, had featured beanballs, managers getting ejected and purposeful, message-sending slides into second base. Maddon had even compared Cardinals manager Mike Matheny to television mobster Tony Soprano. It was exactly what you might expect from an end-of-the-season Cubs-Cardinals series that, for the first time in years, actually mattered. And it was the exact type of playoff-like atmosphere Chicago's young players needed to experience.

As Chicago threatened to take the lead, Ross looked around the dugout at his teammates. He sensed their tension. At the opposite end of the dugout, he noticed second-year reserve outfielder Matt Szczur sitting quietly.

"Soak it up, Matty!" Ross yelled. "This is why we play the game."

Although the words were directed at Szczur, they were intended for everyone. The message: Step outside the moment ever so briefly, and be a fan. Take it in. These 40,000 people are screaming for you. This is why we've worked so hard.

Ross understands this because he has been there -- in the World Series and in a win-or-go-home wild-card game like the one the Cubs will play Wednesday. In 2012 with Atlanta, Ross was a surprise starter in place of Brian McCann against the Cardinals, and he went 3-for-4 with a home run and two RBIs in a 6-3 wild-card loss. He says he went to the bathroom seven times before the game began. A year later, he watched from the on-deck circle as homered in Game 5 of the , and Ross turned to the crowd to absorb its electricity. He has learned to enjoy those moments and embrace the anxiety.

Now, with a sweep of St. Louis at stake, Ross wanted his Cubs teammates to do the same. Szczur chuckled at Ross' suggestion. So did a bunch of other Cubs. The tension broke.

On that day, however, there was no magical, come-from-behind Cubs win. Russell, the rookie shortstop, lifted a fly ball to right, and snagged it before throwing Rizzo out at home to preserve a 4-3 Cardinals win. But the lesson wasn't lost.

"We got better that day," Ross said. "We went through a lot of turmoil but almost won that game. That's only going to help us."

Although he has struggled at the plate, Ross has caught seven shutouts this year. He has been behind the plate in seven other games in which the Cubs allowed just one run. The team is 22-8 in his past 30 starts. But he knows his days as a major leaguer are numbered. While the 2015 postseason might be the first crack at a World Series for the baby Cubs, 38-year-old Ross has been around long enough to understand it could be his last. He could be 21- year-old shortstop Addison Russell's father.

"The guys these days want to play video games," Ross said. "Well, my kids play video games."

Whenever his last game arrives, be it Wednesday, later this month or next year, a future as a broadcaster or perhaps a major league manager awaits. Maddon thinks Ross would be "perfect" to lead a ball club in a more official capacity. "Any team would be lucky to have him," the manager said.

On Wednesday against the Pirates, Ross says he won't do anything differently than what he has done all year. He knows if he or Maddon or anyone else starts showing panic, the paranoia will spread. If something should go wrong in the game, Ross will take it upon himself to focus on the positives and remind those on the field to keep fighting, to not give up a single pitch in a single at-bat.

"Just bring that sense of calm," Ross said.

It's what he has tried to do from the beginning.

"Chris [Denorfia] said to me the other day, 'Do you think the young guys like us, or are we the veterans that we hated when we came up, the assholes that you were always like, "Why is this guy always on my ass?"'" Ross said. "I told him I don't know.

"I joke with the guys all the time. My role on the team? I'm the best high-fiver there is. I give great high-fives. That's my role. I give the best high-fives."

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CSNChicago.com Bring it on: Cubs-Cardinals rivalry will escalate to another level By Patrick Mooney

PITTSBURGH – The National League’s marquee Midwest franchises have been playing each other since 1892 — with more than 2,300 games between Chicago and St. Louis — but the rivalry has never seen anything like this before.

The PNC Park fireworks during Wednesday night’s 4-0 wild-card win over the Pittsburgh Pirates will be nothing compared to the Cubs facing the Cardinals in their first playoff matchup ever.

“We’ll deal with the Cardinals tomorrow,” Theo Epstein said, completely soaked inside a raucous visiting clubhouse where cigar smoke hung in the air, champagne sprayed from all directions and loud rap music blasted from the sound system. “It’s going to be incredible.”

The president of baseball operations had grown up on the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees and taken down The Evil Empire before accepting the challenge in October 2011. The mandate was clear: Finally catch the Cardinals and build a World Series winner after more than a century of disappointments.

By Year 4, Epstein’s front office assembled a 97-win team that didn’t fear anyone but still finished third in the brutal Central. It’s not as glamorous or as media-centric as the old , but the divisional era had never before seen baseball’s top three teams play in the same division.

“We’ve had a little magic going all year long,” Epstein said. “It just felt with all of our being like we deserved a nice little run here in October. Congratulations to the Pirates on a great regular season. They have every right to feel like they should be going on, too. But only one of us could.”

Jon Lester — the $155 million lefty the Cubs signed last winter to help them get to October and pitch in big moments — will start Game 1 of this best-of-five series on Friday at Busch Stadium.

But Lester’s No. 1 priority late Wednesday night was making sure Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder got hit with enough Korbel: “It burns, don’t it?”

Ex-Cubs Kerry Wood and Ryan Dempster and former Blackhawk Chris Chelios joined the party. Out on the service- level concourse, winning pitcher Jake Arrieta chatted with movie star John Cusack for a moment as players celebrated with their friends and families.

“We have a lot of confidence in our group,” said backup catcher David Ross, who tried to protect Arrieta and play peacemaker in the seventh inning and almost wound up in the middle of an all-out brawl. “We don’t really think about the other team that much.

“We try to take care of our stuff in-house and worry about our own guys, our own pitching, our own hitting, our own bullpen and try to go out there and put together a game plan to beat the other team.”

Kyle Schwarber — who had once been viewed as a reach with the No. 4 overall pick in last year’s draft — showed the young Cubs wouldn’t be afraid of the moment or worried about history by driving in three runs with his first two playoff at-bats.

The Cubs went 8-11 against the gold-standard franchise this season, turning up the heat on this rivalry with Joe Maddon’s calculated messages through the media, the manager comparing the Cardinals to “The Sopranos” and knowing he should have a dangerous team for years to come.

The Cardinals have those 11 World Series titles and all that playoff experience after earning their 12th postseason appearance since 2000. But at the most intense time of the year, the Cubs look like a team that’s playing with nothing to lose.

“We’ll get ready for St. Louis a little later on,” said Anthony Rizzo, the All-Star first baseman who sounded crazy back in January predicting the Cubs would win this division. “We’re going to enjoy this one.”

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CSNChicago.com Cubs on benches-clearing incident with Pirates: 'We're not here to fight' By Tony Andracki

Think it's safe to say the Cubs-Pirates rivalry is heating up?

Tony Watson's first pitch to Jake Arrieta hit the Cubs ace right on the hip.

Arrieta immediately started barking at the Pittsburgh Pirates lefty and just like that, it was on.

In the span of about 60 seconds, the bullpens were emptied and the entire roster of both teams had spilled onto the field at PNC Park.

After Chris Coghlan's takeout slide eliminated Jung Ho Kang from the playoff race in the final month of the season, these two teams now have this benches-clearing incident on their resume heading into next season, when both squads will be trying to contend in the toughest division in baseball while squaring off head-to-head 19 times once again.

"It just happened so fast," Cubs catcher David Ross said. "I don't think anybody even thought about it. We're out there just protecting our guys.

"(Arrieta) hit two guys — on accident, in my opinion. It's a hostile environment and sometimes tempers flare."

Arrieta buzzed Pirates catcher Francisco Cervelli to lead off the fifth inning, the ball barely grazing Cervelli's finger on the way past. Hard to imagine Arrieta was trying to put the leadoff guy on base when his team had just extended his lead to 4-0.

The second hit-by-pitch came on a breaking ball and a runner on base as Arrieta hit Josh Harrison to bring up Andrew McCutchen with only one out in the sixth inning.

Arrieta said he expected to get hit in the seventh inning, understanding Watson was just protecting his teammates. 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.

"(It's) the playoffs. There's a lot at stake," Arrieta said. "Tempers are running hot and it is what it is. It's just the environment. It breeds that kind of intensity and sometimes those things happen.

"At the end of the day, I have a tremendous amount of respect for those guys, regardless of what happened in that game."

As Arrieta stared down Watson and Pirates players started entering the fray, Cubs players like Ross and Kyle Schwarber got right on the front lines where Pirates infielder Sean Rodriguez was throwing some haymakers.

Rodriguez came close to landing a punch on Ross, but the veteran catcher confirmed he wasn't hit.

"I'm trying to just get everything calmed down," Ross said. "Because I don't want anybody messing with (our pitcher), the guy that's dominating the game. I don't know if that was their tactic or not.

"But that's a good ballclub. We're not here to fight those guys. That's not what we came here to do. Unfortunately, it got a little ugly for a minute."

Pirates manager Clint Hurdle didn't go so far as to say Arrieta was intentionally throwing at his guys, but he and the Pirates didn't sit well with the pitch to Cervelli.

"You've got a pitcher that's dotting everything up, throwing four pitches for strikes and Cervelli gets pitched hot up top, so I don't think anybody was a fan of that," Hurdle said. "Josh got hit with a breaking ball; that's probably just a pitch that got away."

Cubs manager Joe Maddon launched into a tirade at Wrigley Field last month when he felt like the St. Louis Cardinals were throwing at Cubs players intentionally.

He didn't take the same stance Wednesday, refusing to let the one incident mask his team's victory.

"I have nothing but respect for the Pirate organization, always have," Maddon said. "I was a Roberto Clemente fan growing up.

"So regarding anything that you thought may have been inappropriate tonight, you guys — and ladies — be the judge of that."

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CSNChicago.com On to the next one: Schwarber, Cubs dismantle Pirates in wild-card game By Tony Andracki

PITTSBURGH — Kyle Schwarber certainly didn't permit the pressure to exceed the pleasure.

The rookie masher did what he does best, driving in the first three runs as the Cubs dismantled the Pirates, 4-0, in the National League wild-card game in front of 40,889 fans at PNC Park.

Schwarber got the start in Joe Maddon's unconventional lineup, playing right field, a position he's only been at a handful of times in his professional career.

But the move paid off as Schwarber fought off a two-strike pitch from Gerrit Cole to put the Cubs on top, 1-0, in the first inning and then dropped the hammer with a two-run blast that nearly splashed into the Allegheny River beyond right field in the third inning.

"Oh man, that was magestic," Cubs catcher David Ross said. "He hit that ball and I couldn't even celebrate because I wanted to see how far it went. He's a beast."

It was all Jake Arrieta and the Cubs needed as the ace continued his masterful season with a complete game shutout, striking out 11 Pirates hitters and allowing just four singles.

On offense, Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo combined to go 0-for-7 with a walk, but the top of the order did all the damage.

Beyond Schwarber, Dexter Fowler became the first Cubs player to hit a homer, steal a base, collect three hits and score three runs in a postseason game.

As Maddon says to Fowler all the time — "you go, we go." The 29-year-old leadoff hitter proved that again Wednesday, leading the game off with a base hit and coming around to score on Schwarber's base hit a few pitches later.

Schwarber had actually been struggling the last month-plus of the season, hitting just .177 with a .655 OPS in 33 games dating back to Aug. 20. That followed his ridiculous start to his big-league career (1.021 OPS through 36 games).

Schwarber actually closed out the regular season without an extra-base hit in his last nine games (26 at-bats).

But that all changed once the postseason rolled in.

"I know the struggles are going to happen," Schwarber said. "It's baseball. It's a crazy game that goes up and down. You've just got to try to find a way to be even keel throughout it all.

"The atmosphere today, it was live. It's a playoff game and you're going to be locked in."

Schwarber might have been even-keeled on the field, but he actually admitted that he was nervous leading up to the game.

"The nerve really hit (Tuesday) night when I was watching the American League wild-card game because I realized that was going to be us and in less than 24 hours," he said. "Then coming out to the ballpark, there are butterflies and listening to the national anthem and listening to the crowd roar, there is going to be butterflies.

"But once that first pitch happens, it's game time. It's time to go. Everything starts to slow down from then. You feel so sped up when you're spectating and then once you step onto the field, you slow it down."

How, exactly, does one do that?

It's not just one rookie like Schwarber. It's every young player on the Cubs team rising above the moment — Addison Russell shrugging off an error to turn a double play on the next batter; Bryant playing flawless defense at two different positions.

"We have a great group here," Bryant said. "We just have a lot of fun. That's what it's about — have fun, don't let the pressure affect you.

"Joe says it best — never let the pressure exceed the pleasure. I think that's the best saying. That should be the title of our book."

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CSNChicago.com Guaranteed: Jake Arrieta silences Pirates, delivers wild-card win for Cubs By Patrick Mooney

PITTSBURGH — Jake Arrieta wanted it loud, and that’s exactly what he got on Wednesday night at PNC Park, all those Pittsburgh Pirates fans chanting “Ar-ri-e-ta! Ar-ri-e-ta!” on cue in the first inning.

Leading up to this do-or-die game, Arrieta had responded to Pittsburgh fans over Twitter and lit the match on social media, saying all the decibels wouldn’t matter, another sign of a confidence level that borders on complete arrogance.

Arrieta backed up his big words yet again in this National League wild-card showdown, dominating the Pirates in a 4-0 complete-game victory that really didn’t create all that much drama after so much buildup.

Sure, there was a wild benches-clearing, bullpens-emptying mosh pit after Pirates reliever Tony Watson drilled Arrieta’s left hip with a purpose pitch in the seventh inning. And you felt glued to your seat, because of this all-or- nothing format and a Cubs season that has been so unpredictable.

But Arrieta is at the top of his game now — just ask him — a pitcher in total control, putting up 21 consecutive quality starts and 31 scoreless innings in a row.

“I relish that situation,” Arrieta said. “You got 40,000-plus fans, most of them Pittsburgh fans. They’re out for blood. That’s what I expected. But I was still able to keep my composure and make big pitches, regardless of the noise factor. And that’s what I anticipated doing."

The Cubs feel invincible with Arrieta on the mound and had already scored the first run before he threw a single playoff pitch.

If that didn’t feel like game over, it almost did when Kyle Schwarber flicked his bat to the ground and watched a Gerrit Cole pitch fly over the right-field seats and out of this beautiful waterfront stadium for a two-run homer in the third inning.

Arrieta suffocated a Pirates team that won 98 games and wound up stuck in a wild-card game for the third year in a row. The Pirates scored four runs — three earned — across 45 innings against Arrieta this year.

“Talk about bull riding,” Pittsburgh manager Clint Hurdle said. “Sometimes you draw a tough bull.”

On Wednesday morning, a group of guys taking a cigarette break on Penn Avenue noticed the Cubs fans outside a downtown Pittsburgh hotel.

“Arrieta’s due for a bad game,” one called out.

At some point, the law of averages will have to begin to even out and Arrieta will wake up from this dream season and stop being the hottest pitcher on the planet.

But the Cubs will ride Arrieta’s right arm as far as they can, with the next stop being Busch Stadium for a best-of- five division series that begins Friday against the hated St. Louis Cardinals.

During the postgame news conference, when a reporter mentioned his stuff hadn’t been as “crisp” — those two hit batters nearly sparked a brawl — Arrieta immediately fired back: “I’m not sure what game you were watching.”

Afterward, manager Joe Maddon said the pitch count would have been “infinity,” but Arrieta needed 113 bullets, allowing just four singles and finishing with 11 strikeouts against zero walks.

“It’s a pretty big moment,” Maddon said. “It’s either you win or you go home, and you guys and ladies (in the media) have heard him speak about this moment in advance and how confident that he was. Some people considered it like almost on the braggart side or flagrant. But for me, it’s self-confidence. (And) Jake is a different cat, man.

“(Joe) Namath guaranteeing the Super Bowl victory — that’s all I could think of the last few days. Just sitting in the lounge chair by the pool with all those reporters surrounding him. I was a big Namath fan in ’69.”

Arrieta carried the Cubs on his broad shoulders, getting the franchise back to the postseason for the first time since 2008 with a Cy Young Award-level performance (22-6, 1.77 ERA).

The Cubs hadn’t won a playoff game since Game 4 of the 2003 NLCS against the Florida Marlins at Pro Player Stadium, but the atmosphere around this team feels so much lighter now.

So when Arrieta loaded the bases in the sixth — hitting Josh Harrison and watching Addison Russell commit an error at shortstop — he calmly got Starling Marte to ground into an inning-ending double play.

That silenced the largest crowd to ever watch a baseball game at PNC Park (40,889), completely tearing down the wall of sound that had been building for only a few moments.

And then tempers flared again in the seventh inning. Arrieta held onto his bat and stared at Watson, but the eye- for-an-eye form of justice didn’t surprise him at all. He got a small measure of revenge by stealing second base.

“That s---’s awesome,” Arrieta said. “I might like that more than the CG. I’m going to try and stack up a few more in St. Louis.”

Right now, it looks like it will take a superhuman effort to beat Arrieta in October. The Cubs haven’t lost a game he started since July 25, when Cole Hamels threw a no-hitter for the Philadelphia Phillies at Wrigley Field.

“I’m still trying to process everything,” Arrieta said. “I haven’t had time yet. After the no-hitter (at ), we had a big series coming up. I had to prepare for the next one. And right now, we’re going to enjoy this for the night, probably into tomorrow, and then I’m going to get ready for St. Louis again.

“I think at the end of the season — hopefully a World Series — I’ll sit down with friends and family and teammates and really enjoy it.”

Drenched in champagne and smoking a victory cigar inside the visiting clubhouse, it sounded like Arrieta was joking when he said this, but who knows with a fitness freak like this?

“I’ll work out twice tomorrow,” Arrieta said.

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CSNChicago.com Cubs: Joe Maddon thinks Dave Martinez is ready to manage By Patrick Mooney

PITTSBURGH — Dave Martinez wants to run his own team someday, but he also wants to win big in Chicago, and those forces could push the Cubs bench coach into a difficult decision.

As the Cubs matured into a potential National League powerhouse, Theo Epstein didn’t expect his front office to get raided during this hiring cycle. But Joe Maddon’s right-hand man should draw interest as a high-energy leader with a broad range of experience.

Martinez spent seven years as Maddon’s bench coach with the before returning to the organization that originally drafted him in 1983, helping the Cubs accelerate their rebuilding program with a 97- win season.

“He’s definitely ready to manage,” Maddon said before Wednesday night’s wild-card game against the Pittsburgh Pirates at PNC Park.

The had identified Martinez as a managerial candidate two years ago but ultimately chose Matt Williams, who got fired this week after a massively disappointing finish for a preseason World Series favorite. The and are also searching for new managers now.

Martinez is 51 years old but looks much younger and has the instant credibility that comes from playing 16 seasons in the big leagues. Maddon compared this situation to his time as Mike Scioscia’s bench coach with the Anaheim/ Angels.

“He gave me a lot of latitude regarding just do my job,” Maddon said. “His advice to me on a daily basis was to walk in the door and go about my business as though I was going to manage that particular day. That was the primary premise of me being a bench coach, and I want Davey to be the same way.

“When he comes to the ballpark every day, he walks in the door as though he’s going to manage the game.”

Martinez interviewed with the Cubs after the 2013 season, losing out on the job that went to Rick Renteria for a bridge year. Speculation had linked Martinez as a possible replacement for Ozzie Guillen after the 2011 season, but that didn’t gain any traction, as the White Sox made a surprise pick in Robin Ventura.

Martinez has been exposed to two data-driven organizations that emphasize developing young talent. He can relate to players, helping organize Anthony Rizzo’s postgame celebrations/dance parties. He also runs interference for Maddon and helps police the clubhouse.

“He understands all the numbers that are out there,” Maddon said. “He understands people. He’s really good at tough conversations. He’s very straight up, straightforward and upfront.

“That’s really vital. You have to have those ‘Godfather’ days, man. Sometimes you just got be very blunt and honest with somebody in order to get your point across. He’s got all that.

“He’s absolutely ready. Some team’s going to get lucky.”

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CSNChicago.com Cubs: How Joe Maddon chose his wild-card lineup By Tony Andracki

PITTSBURGH — Joe Maddon has been preaching the "one day at a time" mantra since spring training.

Now, with only one guaranteed day left in the season, Maddon is going all-in to win the one-game wild-card playoff against the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Pirates manager Clint Hurdle has managed the last two wild-card games and opted for a defense-first lineup Wednesday, since he believes pitching and defense are what it's all about in October.

But Maddon loves going against the grain and actually opted for an offense-first lineup against Pittsburgh ace Gerrit Cole.

He also went with an interesting defensive lineup behind Jake Arrieta that put Kris Bryant in left field, Kyle Schwarber in right and Tommy La Stella at third base.

"With Jake pitching, trying to figure out where they're going to hit the baseball," Maddon said. "On paper, maybe it wouldn't be our best defensive lineup, but matching up against Cole, our best offensive lineup.

"Hopefully we'll grab a lead and eventually move the defense around game-in-progress."

Schwarber has seen most of his playing time in left field, but is still a little raw out there and with a short porch in right and a ton of room in left-center at PNC Park, Maddon opted for Schwarber in right field and Bryant's speed in left to cover more ground.

La Stella has only played 16 games at third base between the minors and the big-leagues, but all of those came this season as Maddon maximized the infielder's versatility.

Maddon gave everybody a snapshot preview when he rolled this lineup out last Friday in Milwaukee in Arrieta's final regular-season start.

"It's not like they haven't played there," Maddon said. "We actually showcased this lineup in Milwaukee a couple days ago. I looked at it on the field and kinda liked it.

"If you remember, it played pretty well behind Jake. That's it — it's behind Jake, too. That makes a difference."

La Stella missed most of the first four months of the season with a pair of oblique injuries, but the 26-year-old infielder hit .269 with a .727 OPS in 33 games (67 at-bats), collecting six doubles, a homer and 11 RBIs to go with five walks and seven strikeouts.

It's that contact rate that made Maddon want to start La Stella at third over Javy Baez or even over Chris Coghlan in the outfield (and moving Bryant back to the infield).

Maddon likes having La Stella and Starlin Castro — two guys who don't strike out often — hitting back-to-back behind Bryant and Anthony Rizzo, hoping the high-contact guys can help move the ball and drive in runs even without hitting the ball out of the park.

"To me, Tommy is the most underrated hitter on our team," Maddon said. "I think he's a very good offensive player and so we wanted to include him also today."

When talking about La Stella's contact rate, Maddon also made sure to point out that the 5-foot-11 infielder is capable of hitting one over the fence.

"Tommy will surprise you."

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