Chicago Cubs hit century mark in wins

The term “century” isn't one fans of the Chicago Cubs like to think about a whole lot because it's been more than that long since their team won a World Series.

But Monday night, there was a happy convergence of century marks for the Cubs during a comfortable 12-2 win over the Pittsburgh Pirates at PNC Park.

The victory for the Cubs was their 100th of the season against 56 losses. This marks the first time since 1935 that a Cubs team has won 100 games.

For the past couple of weeks, Cubs manager Joe Maddon has talked about gaining homefield advantage throughout the National League playoffs and winning 100 games in the regular season. Now, the Cubs have done both.

Speaking of the century mark, Cubs slugger Kris Bryant stopped only momentarily there when he hit a 2-run home run in the sixth inning. The RBI were Bryant's 100th and 101st of the season. During his Rookie of the Year season of 2015, Bryant reached 99 RBI.

This game turned the Cubs' way early, on Javier Baez's grand slam in the fourth inning. It was his 14th home run of the season.

That paved the way for starting pitcher Kyle Hendricks to improve his record to 16-8. More important, with 6 scoreless innings pitched, Hendricks lowered his major-league-leading ERA from 2.06 to 1.99.

That could be an important factor in the upcoming balloting for the Cy Young Award. Voters must have their ballots in before the start of postseason play next week.

Hendricks will start the final game of the regular season for the Cubs, Sunday at Cincinnati. If he can keep his ERA under 2.00, he could garner some votes despite not having the innings-pitched total as some of the other Cy Young contenders.

One of those contenders is teammate Jon Lester, who will pitch Saturday with a record of 19-4 with an ERA of 2.28. If Lester can reach 20 wins, still symbolically important, that could sway some voters.

But the way it's looking, the Cy Young voting could be widely split among several candidates at the top of the five-man ballot.

Washington's Max Scherzer appears to be a favorite among some oddsmakers, based on his workload of 217 innings pitched and a record of 18-7 with a 2.82 ERA.

San Francisco's Madison Bumgarner has logged 219 innings, and he has a record of 14-9 with a 2.71 ERA.