CHICAGO - Short on stars but brimming with young talent, the Arizona Diamondbacks pulled off a sweet playoff sweep and celebrated like October regulars.
For the anguished Chicago Cubs, it's another cry of 'Wait Til Next Year.'
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 series.
Next stop for the baby-faced Diamondbacks: a surprising trip to the NLCS.
"Who would have thought that at the beginning of spring training or the season? I'm sure there were a lot of people thinking maybe .500 baseball," Eric Byrnes said during a wild champagne celebration in the clubhouse.
"We have guys who are ready to win. We've already exceeded expectations so far, and we're going to continue to do so."
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.
Showing no jitters before a raucous crowd at Wrigley Field, the Diamondbacks hit three home runs and turned four double plays to back another strong pitching performance from Hernandez and three relievers.
Byrnes and Stephen Drew, who finished the series 7 for 14, also homered as Arizona extended the Cubs' streak of futility without a World Series championship to 99 years.
"The young guys are taking us where we've gotten. We don't do it without a concerted effort from everybody on our team,"Diamondbacks Manager Bob Melvin said. "We can't rely on three or four guys to shoulder the load. We've got to get it from multiple guys every day, and our younger guys showed up big."
Even a return to Wrigley Field 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," Melvin said.
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-tofirst in Piniella's first season as manager, and the team's longsuffering 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.
"This is just a start, fellas. We're going to get better with this," Piniella said.
Over in the visitors' clubhouse, the Diamondbacks doused managing general partner Ken Kendrick in a beer bath.
"I know who did that!" he yelled, laughing. "Whoa, baby! It's all for a good cause."At a glance Arizona vs. Chicago Wednesday Arizona 3, Chicago 1 Thursday Arizona 8, Chicago 4 Saturday Arizona 5, Chicago 1, Arizona wins series 3-0
Sports, Pages 30 on 10/07/2007