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The Honolulu Advertiser

Updated at 3:56 p.m., Saturday, October 6, 2007

Baseball: Diamondbacks complete sweep of Cubs, 5-1

By RICK GANO
AP Sports Writer

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 tonight 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.

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 title. But just when they started to get excited about ending the drought, the Cubs went down in a first-round sweep.

Eric Byrnes and Stephen Drew also homered for the NL West champion Diamondbacks, the first team to have a league's best record and worst batting average since the 1906 Chicago White Sox.

Forget the stats, though, these kids showed they can play under pressure with a sound and thorough thumping of the punchless Cubs.

Hernandez, the 1997 World Series MVP for Florida, gave Arizona another lift. He allowed five hits and a run in six innings, overcoming five walks. The Diamondbacks' defense turned four double plays, three while Hernandez was pitching.

Arizona also got solid starts from Brandon Webb and Doug Davis in the series, and the bullpen wasn't charged with a run. Tony Pena, Brandon Lyon and Jose Valverde finished up Saturday.

Byrnes homered in the sixth off reliever Carlos Marmol and also drove in a run with a disputed fielder's choice when he beat a relay throw to first on a potential double-play grounder in the fourth. Drew hit his second homer of the series, a solo shot off Kerry Wood in the ninth.

Hernandez walked the bases loaded in the fifth as Wrigley Field became deafening with the crowd on its feet, but Mark DeRosa hit into a double play on a 3-1 pitch to end the inning.

Chicago's RBI leader, Aramis Ramirez, came up twice in the early innings with two runners on but struck out and hit into a double play, illustrating the Cubs' offensive woes. He finished the series 0-for-12.