After a five-year absence from October baseball, the Chicago Cubs officially punched their ticket to the postseason on September 17 with an 8-4 win over the Pittsburgh Pirates. It’s their first playoff berth since the shortened 2020 season—and the first full-162 game campaign in which they’ve made the postseason since 2018.
The clincher came in Pittsburgh, where the Cubs swept a three-game series and strung together another victory in a four-game winning streak. Ian Happ led the offensive charge, delivering a two-run homer among his three RBIs, while rookie Moises Ballesteros also went yard early in the game.
Despite a rough start from starter Matthew Boyd—who gave up four runs in three innings—the bullpen calmed things down, and reliever Aaron Civale picked up the win with three scoreless innings.
Now with around two weeks remaining in the regular season, the Cubs find themselves locked into a Wild-Card seed. Though they stumbled in mid-season and saw division hopes slip, their surge down the stretch has revived hope—and Wrigley Field will again host postseason games.
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