ST. LOUIS (AP) — Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina is having surgery Thursday for a ligament injury to his left thumb.

General manager John Mozeliak said Molina is expected to be restricted from baseball activities for two to three months. He anticipates Molina will be ready for spring training.

Mozeliak doesn’t believe Molina worsened the injury by returning to the lineup for the National League Division Series.

Molina was hurt making a tag in Chicago on Sept. 20. He played the first three games of the NLDS with a splint and a bat shaped more like an ax handle. He did not play in Game 4.

Reliever Matt Belisle will have arthroscopic surgery Monday to remove bone chips from his elbow. Pitcher Carlos Martinez will not need surgery. He was shut down before the end of the season with a shoulder injury.

— Associated Press —

CHICAGO (AP) — Joe Maddon posed for a selfie on the field with his wife. Jon Lester sprayed champagne with his young son. Rocker Eddie Vedder partied on the mound.

For the Chicago Cubs and their ever-hopeful fans, this bash was a long time in the making.

Kyle Schwarber, Anthony Rizzo and Javier Baez homered and the fresh Cubs clinched a postseason series at Wrigley Field for the first time ever, beating the St. Louis Cardinals 6-4 Tuesday to win the NL Division Series in four games.

“This is all just baseball fantasy, right?” a drenched chairman Tom Ricketts said.

Only once since they last brought home the World Series in 1908 had the Cubs won a playoff series and never before had they finished off the job at their century-plus-old ballpark.

But with a raucous, towel-waving crowd jamming the Friendly Confines, the North Siders gave generations of fans exactly what they wanted. And as they gathered in the pulsating neighborhood, the lit-up marquee at Wrigley Field said it all: Cubs Win.

“I can only imagine what the next thing is going to look like,” said Lester, the lefty who twice won the World Series with Boston. “And the next thing after that.”

The crowd started roaring before the first pitch. And when closer Hector Rondon struck out Stephen Piscotty on a ball in the dirt and catcher Miguel Montero made the tag to end it, the Cubs came streaming out of the dugout.

“They deserve it,” Rizzo said in the middle of the party. “Hopefully, this is just a taste of what’s to come.”

Up-and-comers all season under their first-year manager, Maddon’s bunch of wild-card Cubs had arrived.

As the music blared and the strobe lights flashed in the clubhouse, Cubs players and coaches soaked each other. Then they took the celebration back onto the field as fans went crazy — Vedder, from the local area, pitched right in.

The Cubs will face the winner of the Los Angeles Dodgers-New York Mets matchup. The Mets took a 2-1 lead into Game 4 Tuesday night.

Chicago will play Game 1 Saturday on the road.

No team was hotter down the stretch than Chicago, which finished third in the majors with 97 wins after five straight losing seasons.

The Cubs knocked out the two teams that finished ahead of them in the NL Central, beating Pittsburgh in the wild-card game and sending St. Louis home after it led the majors with 100 wins.

“I think we’re too young to even realize what we just did,” young slugger Kris Bryant said. “It truly is a special time right now.”

The banged-up Cardinals had reached the NLCS in the last four years.

“It was just unfortunate,” St. Louis manager Mike Matheny said. “This is a team that was as impressive to watch from Day One as any team I’ve ever been around.”

“That’s always hard to walk away from. We had an opportunity maybe to get back home and do things differently, but they took advantage of the opportunities they had,” he said.

Rizzo’s solo drive to right off losing pitcher Kevin Siegrist in the sixth put Chicago back on top 5-4 after St. Louis scored two in the top half.

As if the fans were already hollering at the top of their lungs after that home run, they were really screaming after Schwarber’s monstrous shot leading off the seventh. The ball landed on top of the right-field videoboard and wound up nestled against a railing on the front edge.

The late drives by Rizzo and Schwarber along with Baez’s three-run homer off John Lackey in the second came after Chicago set a postseason record with six long balls in Monday’s win.

And with the ball flying out again, the Cubs won for the 12th time in 13 games.

Cubs starter Jason Hammel allowed two runs and three hits. He exited after giving up a leadoff walk to Jhonny Peralta in the fourth.

Seven relievers combined to hold the Cardinals to two runs and five hits the rest of the way. Trevor Cahill picked up the win and Rondon worked the ninth for the save.

Hammel settled down after giving up a two-run homer to Piscotty on the game’s fourth pitch. He also singled in a run with two out in the second before Baez connected against Lackey, the man the Cardinals were counting on to keep their season going, to make it 4-2.

Lackey gave up four runs and four hits over three innings after outpitching former teammate Lester in a dominant series opener.

The Cardinals, playing without catcher Yadier Molina (left thumb), failed to advance in the postseason after winning at least one series the previous four years.

“I definitely think the ballpark had something to do with this. They also have a really good lineup,” Lackey said.

St. Louis scored two in the sixth to tie it. But the rally ended with Tony Cruz — who drove in a run with a two-out double — getting thrown out at home by Jorge Soler trying to score on Brandon Moss’ RBI single to right.

“I will be shocked if they’re not in the World Series or winning it,” Piscotty said. “They’re playing well. You got to tip your hat.”

NOTABLE

The Cubs are headed to their fourth NLCS. … Chicago batters hit 10 homers in the series.

TRAINER’S ROOM

Cardinals: Matheny said he planned to have Molina in the lineup after the loss in Game 3, but the injured thumb did not make enough progress overnight. Cruz started in his place.

Cubs: SS Addison Russell had tests Tuesday morning on his hamstring and didn’t play. “I haven’t gotten any finalized conclusions from anybody yet,” Maddon said. “He’s not going to play today, of course.” Baez took Russell’s spot.

— Associated Press —

CHICAGO (AP) — The young sluggers of the Chicago Cubs are making themselves at home in the playoffs. On a rare off-night for Jake Arrieta, the Windy City rookies bashed their way to the brink of the NL Championship Series.

Rookies Jorge Soler, Kris Bryant and Kyle Schwarber, along with Starlin Castro, Anthony Rizzo and Dexter Fowler, connected during a six-homer show for the Cubs, who beat the St. Louis Cardinals 8-6 on Monday to take a 2-1 lead in the NL Division Series. Arrieta struck out nine before departing in the sixth inning, and the bullpen finished the job in the first postseason game at Wrigley Field in seven years.

With a third straight Cubs win Tuesday afternoon, the once woebegone franchise will advance to the NLCS for the first time in 12 years. The Cardinals, who led the majors with 100 wins this season, have won at least one playoff series each of the past four years.

Jason Heyward and Stephen Piscotty homered for St. Louis, which got to Arrieta for four runs in his worst start in four months. But the Cardinals were unable to keep the Cubs in the ballpark.

The six homers by Chicago set a franchise record for a playoff game and were one more than the five long balls hit by Cubs in Game 1 of the 1984 NLCS against San Diego.

The Cardinals trailed 8-4 before Piscotty hit a two-run shot with two out in the ninth. It was a scary moment for a towel-waving crowd of 42,411 used to playoff heartache. But Hector Rondon retired Matt Holliday on a harmless bouncer to second, and the party was on.

Arrieta improved to 18-1 with a 1.00 ERA in his past 22 starts dating to June 21, but he was far from his usual dominant self. He hadn’t allowed more than three runs in a game since a June 16 loss to Cleveland.

It didn’t matter — not one bit.

Schwarber, Castro and Bryant homered against Michael Wacha in his first playoff appearance since he threw the final pitch of the 2014 postseason for the Cardinals, which was a game-ending, three-run shot by Travis Ishikawa in the NLCS.

Bryant’s two-run drive made it 4-2 with one out in the fifth and chased Wacha in favor of Kevin Siegrist. Rizzo followed with another long ball, a drive to deep right for his first hit of the playoffs.

Even Adam Wainwright got into the act by serving up Soler’s two-run shot in the sixth. Soler, who struggled with injuries for much of the year, is 4-for-4 with two homers, four RBIs and five walks in the series.

— Associated Press —

ST. LOUIS (AP) — For one inning, Jorge Soler and all those Chicago Cubs rookies looked like playoff-tested veterans, and the St. Louis Cardinals appeared shaken.

That’s all it took.

Kyle Hendricks and Addison Russell had successful squeeze bunts, and Soler capped a five-run second with a two-run homer off Jaime Garcia, and the Cubs held off the Cardinals 6-3 on Saturday night to even their NL Division Series at a game apiece.

“Listen, I can’t be more proud of our guys,” manager Joe Maddon said. “When you win a wild-card game like we did, I promise you, you settle in. We didn’t win yesterday but we were not overwhelmed by anything.”

Maddon made all the right moves a night after the Cubs lost the opener 4-0. Now the teams shift to Wrigley Field for Game 3 Monday, the first playoff game at the friendly confines since 2008, where Chicago’s 22-game winner, Jake Arrieta, faces St. Louis’ Michael Wacha in the best-of-five series.

“Getting back there 1-1 with our big dog on the mound, the atmosphere is going to be good,” Anthony Rizzo said.

The usually steady NL Central champion Cardinals made two errors, and the Cubs didn’t hit the ball out of the infield in scoring their first three runs in the second.

“It is hard to watch a club that’s played so well defensively, see a couple things happen that are kind of uncharacteristic for us,” manager Mike Matheny said.

Making his first postseason start, Soler homered off Garcia (0-1), who was lifted because of a stomach ailment after the second. The Cubs have been working Soler back into the mix after he returned from a left oblique strain in mid-September.

“All I was trying to do was help the team win,” Soler said through a translator. “He got a ball up where I could hit it hard.”

Garcia told the team he felt a bit ill about an hour before the game but thought he’d be fine.

“I was going to pitch, it was my game,” Garcia said. “I worked so hard all year for this situation, and unfortunately, it didn’t go my way, but no excuse.”

Dexter Fowler, Soler and Starlin Castro each had two of Chicago’s six hits in a game played in front of a lively crowd of 47,859, a postseason record at 10-year-old Busch Stadium, that included thousands of Cubs fans.

Soler also doubled and walked twice in the Cubs’ first non-wild card postseason victory since 2003. Chicago had lost seven straight Division Series games.

The Cardinals homered three times, including a leadoff homer by Matt Carpenter. Consecutive shots by Kolten Wong and pinch hitter Randal Grichuk with two outs in the fifth chased Hendricks one out shy of qualifying for the victory in his postseason debut.

Travis Wood (1-0) allowed one hit with two strikeouts in 2⅓ scoreless innings for the victory. Hector Rondon, briefly stuck in the bullpen bathroom during Game 1, earned his first career postseason save.

“That’s really funny for me right now,” Rondon said with a laugh.

Though none of the runs were earned in the second, Garcia’s first postseason start since 2012 was a disaster.

The Cubs capitalized when Garcia blew a play on a safety squeeze by Hendricks. Garcia hesitated instead of throwing home with a very good chance of cutting down the run, then made a wild, flat-footed throw to first for an error.

“I didn’t even see it,” Hendricks said. “I put my head down and started running.”

Russell, the next batter, squeezed in another run, and Fowler had an RBI infield hit before Soler drove a high 2-2 pitch over the center-field wall.

“Everything has to be set up properly for that,” Maddon said. “It just was.”

The inning was also aided by an ill-advised, off-target relay to first for a throwing error by second baseman Wong trying for a double play.

Lance Lynn, the presumptive Game 4 starter, replaced Garcia in the third as the first in a parade of relievers. Matheny said there are “options” for Game 4, with Lynn or lefty Tyler Lyons as possibilities.

Two-time 20-game winner Adam Wainwright, coming off a torn left Achilles in late April, fanned three in 1⅔ scoreless innings, his fourth appearance since being injured and first of more than an inning.

Hendricks allowed three homers in 4⅔ innings. He had 17 no-decisions in the regular season, most in the majors.

SERIOUS SLUMP

Kris Bryant went 0-for-4, with three groundouts and a strikeout. He is 3-for-34 with no RBIs in his past nine games.

BIG PITCH

Ted Simmons, inducted into the Cardinals Hall of Fame earlier this year, threw out the ceremonial first pitch. Simmons had been a senior adviser to the Mariners’ general manager but said he’d been let go.

TRAINER’S ROOM

Cardinals: The outing was Garcia’s shortest of the year. He had a pair of four-inning starts the final month, one of them against the Cubs.

NOTABLE

Wong’s past nine postseason hits have gone for extra bases, matching the major-league-record shared by Miguel Cabrera and Jayson Werth. … Grichuk’s homer gave the Cardinals two homers in three pinch-hit at-bats this series.

UP NEXT

Wacha (17-7, 3.38) was St. Louis’ top winner with 17, but he struggled the final month, going 2-3 with a 7.88 ERA. “I think his highs far outweigh his lows,” Wainwright said. Arrieta (22-6, 1.77) is the Cubs’ biggest winner since Hall of Famer Ferguson Jenkins was 24-13 in 1971. He tossed a shutout in the wild-card game.

— Associated Press —