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Chris Young homered on the game's first pitch, Livan Hernandez wriggled out of several serious jams and Arizona beat the Cubs 5-1 on Saturday night to complete a three-game sweep of their NL division series.
Short on stars and attention -- but not pitching and defense -- the young Diamondbacks are headed to the NL championship series for the second time in the franchise's 10-year history. The previous time they made it this far they went all the way, beating the New York Yankees in the 2001 World Series.
Now, the Diamondbacks get four days to rest before hosting the winner of the Rockies-Phillies series in Game 1 of the NLCS on Thursday. Colorado entered Saturday night with a 2-0 lead over Philadelphia in the best-of-five playoff.
As for the Cubs, it's 99 years and counting since their last World Series title.
Even a return to Wrigley Field and its raucous fans couldn't get Chicago's bats out of a series-long slumber.
Call it curses or bad luck or whatever, but on this sultry October night, the Diamondbacks showed what was obvious since the series began
-- they were the better team, even though they had only four players on the first-round roster with postseason experience.
[Associated Press;
by Rick Gano]
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