Snakebit: Cubs swept from playoffs

CHICAGO — A sweet sweep for the Arizona Diamondbacks. Another cry of 'Wait Til Next Year' from the crestfallen Chicago Cubs.

Chris Young homered on the game's first pitch, Livan Hernandez wriggled out of several serious jams and Arizona beat the Cubs 5-1 Saturday night to complete a three-game sweep of their first-round playoff 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.

"Probably shocked a lot of people, but this team's been doing it all year," Eric Byrnes said.

Now, the Diamondbacks get four days to rest before hosting the Rockies 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, they're still searching for their first World Series title since 1908. Even a return to Wrigley Field and its raucous fans couldn't get Chicago's bats out of a series-long slumber.

"We knew that we'd have to try to take them out of it and take the momentum away, and Chris Young's home run in the first inning went a long way with that," Arizona manager Bob Melvin said. "Just a great place to play baseball."

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.

"These guys are as talented a young group as I've ever seen," Byrnes said. "It's been fun to watch the maturation and watch them grow up."

Chicago's best chance might have come in the opener, when manager Lou Piniella made a move that will be questioned for years. He pulled Carlos Zambrano after six innings and only 85 pitches with the score 1-all because he planned to bring his ace back on three days' rest in Game 4.

The Cubs never got that far.

Chicago went from worst-to-first in Piniella's first season as manager, and the team's long-suffering fans were ecstatic after a late surge to the NL Central crown. But just when they began to get excited about ending the championship drought, the Cubs went down in a first-round sweep.