What a Finish!

The Cubs closed out the home season in grand style Sunday and Monday nights behind two shutout performances.  I was out at the park Sunday night and the atmosphere, despite the prior two losses to Pittsburgh, was electric.  I mean, people were standing up and pulling for Arrieta in the fifth inning, which is a little weird, but indicative of the level of excitement.  I really thought Arrieta had a shot at a second no-hitter.  His stuff is so good and so hard to hit that he really has a shot at this sort of performance every time he starts, which is why you really have to like the Cubs chances in a one-game playoff no matter where it is played.

Monday's game was a classic pitchers duel between Hendricks and Ventura.  In this case, Ventura carried a no-hitter into the sixth inning before Soler broke it up.  After that, when the starters had been pulled, it was just a matter of which manager would run out of bullpen bullets first.  In this case, it was Yost who blinked or at least showed reluctance to use his closer in a tie game on the road.  Instead he brought in the rookie Almonte, who had given up three homers in eight innings of work this season.  Denorfia blasted his first pitch high into the left field bleachers to win the game.  Denorfia rarely plays much these days, so it must have been a real fillip for him to get the winning hit.

The picture above is from Sunday night's game and shows Castro being greeted after hitting what was at first called a home run and later reversed to a double.  It still scored two insurance runs in a big inning that put the game pretty much out of reach.