Brewers top Cubs to earn invite to post season party
MILWAUKEE - It was the biggest party under one retractable roof that this sudsy town has ever seen.
Minutes after the Milwaukee Brewers beat the Cubs 3-1 Sunday, workers were wheeling "2008 Wild Card Champion" T-shirts and bottles of champagne toward the Brewers' clubhouse.
Nothing had been decided yet, so most in the Miller Park crowd of 45,299 stuck around to watch the end of the Mets-Marlins game on the big screen in center field.
When the Marlins beat the Mets 4-2, Miller Park exploded in celebration, and eventually the Brewers came out onto the field to join the raucous celebration with their fans, who haven't enjoyed a postseason since the 1982 Brewers went to the World Series as an American League team.
Ryan Braun hit a 2-run homer in the bottom of the eighth against Bob Howry, and big lefty CC Sabathia tossed his 10th complete game of the season and seventh since being traded to the Brewers from Cleveland in July.
He did it all pitching on three days' rest.
"The guy's like Superman," said Brewers catcher Jason Kendall, who was with the Cubs' playoff team last year. "He really is. He's a special pitcher."
Sunday's turn of events means the Cubs will play the NL West-champion Los Angeles Dodgers in one National League division series, beginning Wednesday at Wrigley Field. The Brewers will play the Philadelphia Phillies, winners of the East.
The Cubs went with a pitcher-by-committee system, and it didn't work out badly until late in the game.
Angel Guzman started and pitched 2 scoreless innings. The Cubs got an unearned run against Sabathia in the second. Cubs reliever Michael Wuertz walked in a run in the seventh.
Howry gave up a one-out single to Mike Cameron in the eighth. After Ray Durham flied out, Braun crushed the first pitch over the wall in left.
"No, I was just trying to hit the ball hard," Braun said when asked if he was thinking homer. "We've just got to find a way to continue to play."
All in all, Cubs manager Lou Piniella said he was pleased with the overall effort of his pitchers. The Cubs finished the season with a record of 97-64, the first time the Cubs have posted a 97-win season since the 1945 pennant winners went 98-56.
"Our kids really pitched well today," Piniella said. "We made a game out of it. When I left the hotel this morning, I wasn't sure how this thing would go. It went well. Sabathia's a horse. He might be pitching on two days' rest, and by the end of the year, he'll be on one."