It wasn't pretty, but Cubs win 9th straight

Sometimes the postgame comments are better than the game itself.

Take Saturday night's 6-3 Cubs victory over the White Sox. Please.

Actually, the Cubs gladly accepted the win, their ninth in a row and 15th in 16 tries. But as manager Joe Maddon likes to point out, they're not all oil paintings.

"This was more like paint by numbers," said Maddon, whose team is 67-48. "You know, Dick Tracy with maybe a little glitter. Remember those? You paint it up and you drop maybe a little glue, and the glitter comes on the top. Your mom really loved that on the green carpeting, with that kind of pink glitter."

This game was no masterpiece by either Chicago team, each of which committed a pair of errors, with the Cubs throwing in a couple baserunning gaffes.

"Regardless of the mistakes we made tonight, you cannot not appreciate the effort of our group," Maddon said. "Our guys were out there playing, seriously, playoff-caliber baseball, Their effort, their intensity, their look, their want-to, whatever you want to call it, I cannot be more happy with the group regarding just showing up ready to play baseball."

Rookie Kyle Schwarber got into the act, both during the game and in the postgame analysis. He singled a run home to give the Cubs a 2-1 lead in the fifth after White Sox manager Robin Ventura walked Dexter Fowler intentionally to get to him.

Schwarber also had a mostly full container of beer thrown at him - fortunately it sailed well over his head - as he chased a double by Alexei Ramirez into the left-field corner in the sixth inning. In fact, he said he was not aware that the beer was hurled at him until he walked back toward his position.

"I guess that's what this series is all about," he said before seeming to lament a waste of perfectly good suds. "Beer can. Tallboy. It wasn't even (consumed) all the way. Dex (Fowler) said a Sox fan was actually getting after the guy who threw it at me."

But seriously, the Cubs got another winning performance from the team as a whole and from starting pitcher Jake Arrieta, who improved to 14-6 with his 11th-straight quality start. Arrieta worked 6⅔ innings, giving up 5 hits and 3 runs, 2 earned. He contributed to some of the badness with a throwing error in the second inning to lead to an unearned run.

"Timing was a little off," he said of his performance. "Had my foot on the gas a little too much early in the game, which is unnecessary. Sometimes it happens. You just have to make the adjustment. Back off. I did it when necessary but could have been more efficient with it."

The Cubs pretty much broke this one open with a 3-run seventh, when they sent eight men to the plate and worked long at-bats.

"We're in a position right now, in the hunt," Arrieta said. "Having guys step up in moments like this, it speaks very highly of their character and their ability to make the adjustment on a pretty consistent basis, because it's hard to do."

And even if it isn't always pretty, the Cubs are getting it done.