CHICAGO — The sneak-attack champagne and beer showers quickly made nobody safe in the Chicago Cubs clubhouse.

Multiple players victimized manager Craig Counsell, whose eyes had become so blinded by the deluge of alcohol he couldn’t make out who got him. Michael Conforto dumped a full beer down the back of an unsuspecting Carson Kelly while across the room Shota Imanaga threw his head back, opened his arms and let out a yell as assistant hitting coach Juan Cabreja uncorked the champagne. A double-fisting Pedro Ramírez unloaded two beers over a grinning Nico Hoerner’s head.

Pete Crow-Armstrong, a frequent target of his teammates and staff during the celebration, felt the burn.

“I have more cuts on my body, I was maybe a little more sunburn for this — I might just be too fair-skinned for all the showers because it stings, but the celebration was great,” Crow-Armstrong said. “Anytime you get to go around the room and thank your teammates, that’s always fun. I’m glad that there’s a handful of guys in here that got to do it for the first time. I think that’s the most important thing is giving those guys a taste of what’s to come and showing everybody that it’s only going to get more fun as we continue to win and get to celebrate.”

While the initial on-field reaction was subdued when the Cubs clinched a playoff spot Thursday with a 2-1 win over the Miami Marlins at Wrigley Field, they savored the moment during their postgame clubhouse celebration.

The Cubs return to the postseason for a second consecutive year, finally getting in after being a win away since Sunday. They now set their sights on securing the National League’s first wild-card spot to host a best-of-three series. This marks the only fourth time since 1906 that the Cubs have strung together postseason appearances in at least two consecutive years and the first since a four-season run from 2015-18.

Locking in that top wild-card position will come down to the final days of the regular season. The Cubs (88-71) are a half-game behind the San Diego Padres (88-70) and a half-game ahead of the Philadelphia Phillies (87-71), pending those teams’ Thursday night results, with three games remaining.

Before the chaos of champagne bottles popping and beer-drenched carpet, Counsell addressed the team in the clubhouse postgame Thursday and began by summoning the medical and high-performance staff to the middle of the room. Counsell acknowledged what that group put into the players in what was a challenging season filled with injuries.

“We love you, we appreciate you and we respect the work you guys do for us every single day,” Counsell said, prompting cheers through the clubhouse.

It was a little moment to recognize the people behind the scenes in a season filled with adversity.

“That was cool — it’s such a group effort to make something like this happen over six, seven months together, and you can both have the highest of goals and aspirations, but I hope no one ever takes it for granted,” Hoerner said. “We had some tough years here where we weren’t even close to making the playoffs, so it’s not a perfect season. We have a long way to go, but every bit of it’s important to acknowledge, and the game is incredibly hard, and you have to enjoy the special things.”

The Cubs were challenged on the road to the postseason.

Losing right-hander Cade Horton two innings into his second start of the year delivered an immediate blow. Left-hander Justin Steele, on track to return in early June from April 2025 elbow surgery, suffered a rehab setback at the end of April with a flexor strain that has prevented him, to this point, from pitching in a big-league game this season.

Two 10-game winning streaks in late April and early May within a 23-game stretch were quickly followed by a 10-game skid in mid-May. The rotation became decimated by injuries as the end of June approached when Edward Cabrera and Ben Brown, the latter trending toward his first All-Star Game selection, landed on the injured list on the same day during a series in New York. The stress reaction in Brown’s neck ultimately kept him out the rest of the year. Then, with a week left in the regular season, Alex Bregman suferred fractures in his left cheek from a foul ball, an injury that still has an unknown timeframe of when he could be back in the lineup.

Yet the Cubs found a way to keep the season together.

They were led by Pete Crow-Armstrong’s MVP-caliber performance, Bregman’s second-half offensive surge, the best scoring offense and best defense in the majors, a rotation that has relied on lefties Matthew Boyd and Shota Imanaga and an unheralded bullpen that was saved at a critical juncture of the season by veteran reliever Jacob Webb’s 24 consecutive scoreless appearances spanning two months.

“We’ve been through a lot, it hasn’t been all smooth, but you develop some resiliency through that and some calluses through that, and I think it gets you through a lot of stuff,” Counsell said. “And you’ve got to keep responding to that stuff. That’s what this team has done. You just try to rack up wins as much as you can, and we’ve got enough wins to get in there.”

The Cubs had a to wait a few more days than they wanted to secure their playoff spot. But veterans such as Boyd, who limited the Marlins to one run in seven innings Thursday, know reaching the playoffs is never a guarantee, even for talented teams.

“I didn’t get to do this for the first eight years of my career,” Boyd said with a cigar in hand. “We were really close my second year, and I always thought it was going to be right around the corner, it was going to happen that next year, so it’s fun to acknowledge these things.

“We’re capable of anything we set our minds to. We believe in the totality of this group, the totality of the lineup, the pitching staff. We’re a collective, we’re strong, and we’ve gone through a lot of ups and downs as a team, myself included, in terms of just injuries. Our best is ahead of us.”

The Cubs haven’t shied away from the postseason expectations they carried into the year and the belief this team is capable of a deeper playoff run than a year ago, when their season ended in the division series against the NL Central rival Milwaukee Brewers. They still have a chance to make their path to the World Series slightly easier if they can finish in the top wild-card spot to get home field for their opening series.

“It’s anybody’s game in the playoffs,” Crow-Armstrong said, “and we’re just going to go keep playing ball.”

They are embracing what lies ahead, even as their September performance hasn’t been their best. By avoiding a sweep by the Marlins on Thursday, the Cubs head to Boston for a doubleheader Friday looking to build momentum for the playoffs as they still have a shot to host their wild-card series amid an uncertain weather forecast against the Red Sox.

“At the end of the year, on an individual basis, is the time of year when even on good teams, it’s easy for guys to get pulled and get more focused on themselves with wanting to finish strong, whatever that means,” Hoerner said. “Even if it’s well-intentioned, those are oftentimes traps individually. Whether you’re having a great year, a bad year, everything in between, those are things that can pull people apart. So we’re all super grateful to be in a situation where every game matters.

“Obviously home field is a huge deal and making the playoffs at all. And so being a part of a team that’s emphasized group dynamics and opportunity and all those things make playing as an individual a lot easier.”

Navigating a pitching staff tested by injuries was helped by an offense that leads MLB in runs, slugging percentage and home runs and is tied for first in walk rate.

On the defensive side, the Cubs’ 69 outs above average (OAA) is easily the best in baseball, with only one other team (the Arizona Diamondbacks at 42) having more than 33. It set a record since it was tracked in 2016, passing the 2017 Minnesota Twins’ mark of 66 OAA, while the Cubs’ 67 fielding run value broke the previous record of 64 held by the 2018 Diamondbacks.

The Cubs, though, aren’t satisfied with just getting into the playoffs.

“That’s why we stay so much in the moment of each day,” Kelly said, “and if you take care of every day over the course of the year, you’ll be where you want to.”

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