MILWAUKEE – As streamers descended from the American Family Field dome, fireworks popped and the Brewers’ players formed a mob scene on the infield Saturday night, a handful of Cubs players remained in the dugout watching the celebration.
Nico Hoerner looked on for a few moments before turning and heading down the steps to the visitors’ clubhouse. Pete Crow-Armstrong stayed longer, leaning over the blue railing as the crowd roared and the reality of Chicago’s 3-1 loss in Game 5 of the National League Division Series set in.
“The last out of a season is a strange thing,” Hoerner said. “You’ve done nothing but prepare, prepare, prepare. And you’re feeling your best and you feel like you have so much more to give. But there isn’t a next thing. That really stings.”
The Cubs played with their collective backs against the wall for the last three games of the NLDS. They clawed back against the Brewers, using the riotous atmosphere in Wrigley Field to their advantage, but simply could not complete what would have been an improbable comeback story.
In the end, the Brewers proved too difficult for the North Siders to chase down.
The loss at the hands of their rivals to the north in the winner-take-all Game 5 of this classic NLDS put a frustrating period on a season with so much promise. Milwaukee advances to take on the Dodgers in the NL Championship Series, while the Cubs head back down I-94 to begin their offseason.
“It’s a very good baseball team,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said of the Brewers. “And a team that deserves and earned their way for the right to go to the World Series. … I’m disappointed. I’m sad. I think this team did a lot to honor the Chicago Cub uniform. In the big picture, that’s how I feel.
“But, ‘What did we do wrong tonight?’ That’s kind of what you’re stuck on.”
Chicago certainly put up a fight – one featuring the kind of resiliency on display all season for the ballclub – after losing the first two games of the series in Milwaukee. Once the Cubs returned to the Friendly Confines, they evened things up with two dramatic wins to set up Saturday’s heavyweight bout.
“We played great games at Wrigley,” said outfielder Ian Happ, the longest-tenured player on the Cubs. “It was a good series. It was a good series all around. The Brewers did a great job – they did a great job. They pitched it. And they did a great job at home. That’s part of home-field advantage, I guess.”
Counsell opted to lean heavily on his bullpen in the series finale, handing the ball to veteran lefty Drew Pomeranz as the opener. Pomeranz retired the first two batters he faced, extending his perfect run to 25 batters in a row, dating back to Sept. 23. That streak was swiftly snapped when William Contreras belted a two-out homer in the first inning.
Before the game, Cubs shortstop Dansby Swanson used the word “mayhem” to describe the way the first inning has gone in this NLDS. To his point, Contreras’ blast made it 22 combined runs (11 apiece for each team) in the opening frame, marking the most runs scored in the first in any postseason series in MLB history.
“I’ve never really seen anything like it,” Swanson said of the first-inning scoring.
Cubs slugger Seiya Suzuki breathed life into his team’s hopes in the second inning, when flame-throwing rookie Jacob Misiorowski took over for Milwaukee. Misiorowski unleashed a 101.4-mph fastball that Suzuki launched to right-center field, where it carried over the wall for his third homer of the playoffs. The Cubs outfielder pumped his fist violently as he rounded first base.
The game remained locked in a 1-1 tie until the fourth inning, when Andrew Vaughn sent a full-count cutter from Cubs righty Colin Rea out to left for a go-ahead blast that riled up the Milwaukee crowd. And then in the seventh, Brice Turang connected on a first-pitch slider from Andrew Kittredge to give the Brewers some insurance.
That lead held much to the delight of a Brewers’ fan base still looking for any chance to send boos raining down on Counsell.
“This was more than the usual Division Series,” Brewers veteran Christian Yelich said. “You try to downplay it going into this series against the Cubs and call it any other Division Series, you say you just want to advance. But the rivalry between these two teams – I feel like it’s been our two teams going at it the last eight years – all of the storylines there.”
When Chicago pried Counsell away from Milwaukee’s managerial chair two winters ago, the goal was to push the Cubs to the next level. The Cubs did that this season, winning 92 games and booking a spot on the October stage for the first time since 2020, and the first time with fans in the stands since ’18.
“We took a really good step in the right direction, for sure,” starter Jameson Taillon said. “We won more games and we made the playoffs – that’s obviously a huge step. Now, it’s about staying power and doing it every year. That’s what the great teams do.”
The problem for the Cubs, of course, continued to be this Brewers team that would not go away quietly.
The Cubs stormed to the top of the NL Central for most of this season, residing in first place as late as July 27. Then came a pair of losses in Milwaukee and a second-half surge by the Brewers that was too much to overcome. The Cubs finished five games back of the 97-win Brewers, who earned a playoff bye while Chicago went the distance against the Padres in a draining Wild Card Series.
The first win over San Diego gave the Cubs their first playoff win since 2017. When they secured a spot in the NLDS and partied at Wrigley, it marked the Cubs’ first playoff clinch at home since the ’16 NLCS. Until Saturday, the North Siders had won three elimination games in this postseason.
The Cubs needed to win one more.
“It stings extra, because the belief of the group was legit,” Hoerner said. “It was high. Winning a World Series. Playing the biggest games in baseball. Yeah, those games at Wrigley were incredibly uplifting, but obviously, we had a lot more ahead of us in our mind.”
