Chicago Cubs win with wild finish

The Chicago Cubs proved once again Sunday that if you go to a baseball game, there's a chance you'll see something you've never seen before.

How about the Cubs losing an early 3-0 lead and eventually falling behind 5-3 to the Toronto Blue Jays in the 10th? No problem.

Or how about two of their batters striking out in the bottom of the 10th but reaching base on dropped third strikes. That happened, too, and Alex Avila made the Jays pay with a game-wining 2-run single in the 10th that gave the Cubs a 6-5 victory and a sweep of the three-game series.

Both Kyle Schwarber and Javier Baez reached on dropped third strikes, and Baez beat the throw home from right field to score the game-winnning run from second base.

"Wow," said Cubs manager Joe Maddon, whose first-place team is 66-57. "It's a crazy game."

Maddon also went to bat for Baez, who for whatever reason gets criticized in some quarters for being "flashy."

However, Baez flashed some baseball awareness when he hustled to first base when he struck out as the ball got away from Jays catcher Raffy Lopez. At the time, there was one out and a runner on third base.

"Javy runs hard, OK?" Maddon said. "For those that ever want to criticize this guy, that's a ball in the dirt about 15 feet away from the catcher. The catcher just blanked out on it. If Javy does not run hard right there, it's a different result.

"He ran hard, and that's why he was safe, obviously, because the time Lopez figured it out, he had already beaten down to first base."

Schwarber led off the inning by reaching on a dropped third. He said what Baez did was more impressive.

"Mine was a little bit different than Javy's," Schwarber said. "I give a lot of credit to Javy there because he was busting butt down the line on a ball that didn't really kick that far.

"I don't think that the catcher really realized that. By the time he turned around to throw, he was already there. Kudos to Javy there for always running it out. That's a baseball play right there."

It helped to set up the game-ending hit by Avila, who entered the game in the ninth as a pinch hitter. Avila has been with the Cubs since July 31, when he came over in a trade with Detroit.

"Sometimes over the course of the year, if you're a team that's trying to get to the playoffs, you've got to win crazy games like that, games that you shouldn't necessarily win," he said. "I've felt part of this team for a while now. Everybody's been very welcoming. I feel like I've been here all year."

Speaking of crazy, Avila chunked a ball into the ground in the top of the 10th when he was trying to throw it back to pitcher Koji Uehara. A runner advanced on the play, and the Jays wound up scoring twice in the inning to break a 3-3 tie.

"I was glad I was able to make up for my amazing throw the half-inning before," Avila said. "I went to throw it back to Koji. In the middle of my motion to throw the ball, he kind of just signaled to get a new ball, and I tried to stop my arm, and the ball just kind of slipped out of my hand."

The game looked to have slipped away after that, but there was more craziness to come.

"I do love that we don't quit," Maddon said. "We talk about it all the time. We do not quit."

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