Powered By Departing Heroes, Cubs Clinch Playoff Berth in Last Chance Before Home Fans

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All season, there has been a sense of urgency hanging over the Chicago Cubs. They need to win this year. They need to achieve as much as they can, and make the most of this chance, because the future is highly uncertain. However this year ended, it seemed, there were no guarantees of 2027 (or 2028, or 2029) being better. It took longer than anyone hoped, but in their final home game of the season, the team clinched a playoff berth. They might still have to play on the road in the Wild Card Series. They might not be back in front of the Wrigley Field faithful until next spring. But they will play past Game 162. That was the first and most important box they had to check on the season's to-do list.

Ian Happ, who debuted 112 months ago and has played more games in a Cubs uniform than all but 19 other people in the franchise's history (more, for instance, than Frank Chance or Shawon Dunston), hit a sixth-inning triple and came home with the go-ahead run, putting the team up by a 2-1 score that would become the final. The day started with Happ and the fans in the left-field bleachers engaging in an endearing annual ritual, wherein Happ throws a ball with money wrapped around it into the stands to buy beer for as many fans as the bills will cover—and, this time, the fans threw back a ball signed by several of the regulars, thanking the outfielder for his years of dedication to the team. It ended with Happ fighting back tears on the field, as fans showered affection on a team that has survived enormous adversity to get this far.

Before Happ's minor heroics, Seiya Suzuki launched a key, game-tying solo home run in the fifth. Like Happ, Suzuki will be a free agent this fall. His five-year contract has been a big win for the Cubs, despite his early, costly miscues in the field and a number of injuries that have interrupted his tenure. Though the relationship between the player and the fans is not as strong, Suzuki has been a productive player and a welcome presence in the organization, and it was only fitting that he would strike a telling blow in a vital game before the home schedule concluded.

Two runs is paltry run support, but Matthew Boyd made it stand up. The veteran lefty fired seven innings of one-run ball, using his typical array of big speed changes to induce early and (mostly) harmless contact from a Marlins lineup that gave the Cubs headaches all week. Boyd, too, will be a free agent after the end of the World Series. This is just his second season with the Cubs, but he's one of the most universally liked players in baseball and has knitted himself into the fabric of both the clubhouse and the community even in a relatively short time.

Boyd, Happ and Suzuki aren't the only Cubs who probably won't be here next year. The front office has some heavy lifting to do over the fall and winter, and if an offseason work stoppage disrupts their roster building, their job will only get harder. That lurking reality has cast a shadow over this entire season. It's made things stressful for the team and for fans, even if many of them couldn't have articulated the reason.

That cloud lightened a bit at the beginning of the season, with the contract extensions signed by both Pete Crow-Armstrong and Nico Hoerner. Crow-Armstrong was under team control for several more seasons anyway, of course, but locking him in gave the fan base a bracing infusion of confidence and excitement about the future. Hoerner was an impending free agent until signing his deal, but will now be a Cub for six more seasons.

Still, the team has a huge cadre of players who will be free agents this November. It includes virtually their entire starting rotation and about half their bullpen, plus both starting corner outfielders (Happ and Suzuki) and their starting catcher (Carson Kelly). That Happ, Suzuki, Kelly, Shota Imanaga, Boyd, trade acquisitions Kevin Gausman, Clay Holmes, Tyrone Taylor and surprise contributors Jacob Webb and Michael Conforto will be back next season ranges from unlikely to unthinkable. Chicago is fully committed to a core of Crow-Armstrong, Hoerner, Michael Busch, Dansby Swanson and Alex Bregman, but the last two of those are each heading into their mid-30s. That leaves a lot of questions to be answered. It means that as much as half of this roster might have just played for the last time in the Cubs' home whites.

If so, at least they gave themselves a proper sendoff. In a rare twist for a Jed Hoyer-built team, the two most prominent long-term fixtures on the team in Thursday's win were relievers. Daniel Palencia and Ryan Zeferjahn are essential to any postseason run the team hopes to make this year, but they're also under club control through the end of the decade, and the hope is that each will have a better season or two between now and when they hit free agency. The best development of the last week for the team (an uneven one, overall) has been Palencia and Zeferjahn seeming to round into form. The outline of a solid October relief corps is coming into focus.

Then, of course, there was Crow-Armstrong. He wasn't actually involved in the decisive actions of Thursday's game, except in that he charged and threw (off-line; he still overcooks those sometimes, because no one is quite perfect) toward home on the single that plated Miami's only run. He was still very much in the center of the narrative, though, and he literally seized center stage in the bottom of the first inning. After drawing a leadoff walk, he stole second base on the first pitch by Marlins righty Tyler Phillips. It was his 40th steal of the year, putting him (at last; fans have breathlessly tracked his pursuit of the milestone for weeks) into the vaunted 40/40 club. Seizing their own moment, the fans gave Crow-Armstrong a long, rousing standing ovation, with him in the very center of the diamond, doffing his helmet lovingly but rather reservedly, then tapping the Cubs logo on his chest, then trying to clamp down on his emotions and waiiting for the game to resume.

That moment did nothing to decide the game. It was an impressive bit of baserunning nous by Crow-Armstrong, who clearly had a sense of what to look for when Phillips was working out of the stretch and got a huge jump without even waiting out a pitch. He topped himself immediately afterward with a half-delayed tag-up on a flyout to left-center field, using fake-casual body language to bait Miami center fielder Jakob Marsee into a lazy throw and then taking third base. But ultimately, Boyd, Happ, Suzuki and Hoerner (who drove in Happ with a line-drive single to left) were the heroes of the day. Still, Crow-Armstrong's will be the indelible image and moment from it.

Nothing could be more apropos. The 2026 Cubs will be remembered for and defined by Crow-Armstrong, whose season has been transcendent. He's been dominant, in ways both big and small. He's been a sensation. They'll go as far (or fall as far short) as the rest of the team can take them, though. Crow-Armstrong's brilliance is the only reason they're going to the playoffs; the rest of the team has played much like the Diamondbacks squad they eliminated with the win. One player can't carry a team all the way to a championship, though. The Cubs will have to hope that there are a few more days like Thursday ahead, along with a few more where Crow-Armstrong does take over and win a game on his own. In the bright and jangly moments after the final out Thursday, it felt possible.