One thing about these Cubs that should help them out next week, presuming the Wild Card Series is held at Wrigley Field: The team’s bats have come alive. In four games this homestand, the Cubs have scored 34 runs, 12 of them on a gorgeous late September Friday in crushing the Cardinals 12-1.

In so doing they reduced their magic number to clinch home field to 1. There are five possible results remaining between Cubs and Padres games — five chances to have one Cubs win or one Padres loss. It’s not clinched yet but I am feeling pretty confident after this game.

Let’s begin at the beginning. Colin Rea had a 1-2-3 first and the second Cubs batter of the game, Nico Hoerner, smashed a home run off Miles Mikolas [VIDEO].

Rea continued to mow down Cardinals, striking out four over the first four

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