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Nov 23 '16, 05:10AM
CHICAGO -- Teams usually cant wait to get out of the cramped quarters of the visiting clubhouse at Wrigley Field. Ryan Getzlaf Jersey . Not so the Atlanta Braves, who were delighted to put in some overtime in the less-than-friendly confines Friday night. The Braves 9-5 victory over the Chicago Cubs reduced their magic number to one and ensured them of at least a tie in the NL East. The players decided to watch the game between the second-place Washington Nationals and Miami Marlins in the clubhouse to see if they would win the outright title -- even though Nationals-Marlins wasnt slated to begin until an hour and a half after the Braves game ended. "Some guys are going to stay here and some guys families are here, so theyre going to go spend some time with their families," closer Craig Kimbrel said. "Were all going to be back here around the end of the game." The Nationals won 8-0 to keep the Braves from clinching. When asked if it would be weird sticking around so late to watch the game in an empty ballpark, Kimbrel said: "No, we did it in 2010 with San Diego and San Francisco. Its actually, a lot of fun. Lets just hope the Marlins win." If not, the Braves simply will look to take care of things during their next opportunity. "This might be the best group of guys in terms of resiliency," manager Fredi Gonzalez said. "They battle. Theyre a talented group of guys -- lets not forget that --but weve gone through some adversity at times, losing some key players earlier in the year and a leader on our pitching staff. "Its a good group of guys; just a good team." That all was on display Friday. Chris Johnson went 3 for 4 with a home run, and the Braves broke open a tie game in the top of the ninth inning with four runs -- all with two outs. Brian McCann and Johnson each had an RBI single, and Andrelton Simmons followed with a two-run double. Freddie Freeman earlier hit a three-run homer for Atlanta, which jumped out to a 4-0 lead. "We had a chance for some add-on runs earlier in the game," Gonzalez said. "We some opportunities and didnt do it; (McCann) popped up with runners on second and third (in the fifth inning). But thats how good this guy is. He comes back later in the ninth inning, facing a pretty good reliever in Kevin Gregg, and gets a base hit." McCann made the most of his second chance. "I was just glad to get a pitch to handle and not miss it," the catcher said. Gregg (2-5) gave up all four ninth-inning runs, and that was just the start of his bad day. Gregg had been told by manager Dale Sveum a couple of days ago that Cubs would take an occasional look at Pedro Strop in the closers role, but Gregg took it to mean that he was no longer the closer and went on a rant against the front office after the game. That prompted Cubs president Theo Epstein to get involved. "Apparently Kevin misunderstood Dale and thought hed had his job permanently taken away from him," Epstein said. "Despite getting the ball in the closers role the past couple days, he apparently had some choice words. Upon hearing that I called him up to Dales office to tell him how disappointed I was in him. "I think it took him a couple minutes to understand that hed misunderstood Dale and he ultimately apologized to me and Dale. I told him that Id sleep on it and decide if we had any disciplinary action." On the other side of Wrigley Field, the atmosphere was completely different as the Braves prepared for their post-season party. "Its been a fun season," starter Paul Maholm said. "We started off real hot and built a big lead, we cooled off a bit, lost some people, but we were able to maintain that big lead. "Hopefully, well go deep in their playoffs." NOTES: The Braves activated OF Jason Heyward before the game. He wore a facemask attached to the right side of his batting helmet to protect the right jaw that was fractured Aug. 21 when he was struck by a pitch from the Mets Jon Niese. "Im just really excited and happy to be back," he said. "Im not going to be as good today as I will be in five days, but you have to start the process sometime." As planned, Heyward played just five innings, going 0 for 2 with a walk. ... The Cubs announced before the game that C Welington Castillo has partially torn meniscus in his right knee and will miss the rest of the season. He will have arthroscopic surgery and the expected recovery time is 4 to 6 weeks. ... The series continues Saturday with Cubs LHP Travis Wood (9-11) going against RHP Kris Medlen (14-12). Paul Kariya Jersey . The Croatian served 21 aces and hit 42 winners against Sijsling, who double-faulted to give Cilic a 4-3 lead in the deciding set. "All the players, they know me and they were really happy to see me and they were really happy that this is over for me," Cilic said.Ryan Kesler Jersey . Aduriz headed home Markel Susaetas cross in the sixth minute to open the scoring at San Mames Stadium. He bettered that with a long-range blast that went in off the goal frame in the 18th, and converted a penalty in the 72nd after Diego Mainz was sent off for fouling Aduriz with only the goalkeeper to beat.http://www.officialduckshockey.com/John-Gibson-Jersey/ . Colin Wilson had two goals and an assist, and Mike Fisher scored a goal and helped set up two others in the Predators 6-4 victory over the Red Wings on Monday night.McLarens full Australian GP-specification car will now be tested for the first time on the season-opening weekend after they ran out of time at Barcelona. The Woking team did introduce new chassis parts onto the MP4-31 at the final test but delays in the manufacturing process at their Woking base meant the full package wasnt ready to run in time for Fridays final day.We are not running the 2016 spec here, said racing director Eric Boullier. We are a bit behind the programme. So that means we are going to turn up in Australia with more bits on the car, which have unfortunately not been signed off here. But it is what it is.Boullier downplayed the reasons for the full specification not arriving in time, saying they were perhaps only guilty of being too ambitious in the production timetable.Although the team will now face a particularly busy Friday practice in Melbourne on March 18, Boullier said they could be pleased with the mileage they were able to complete with the new Honda-powered car during the winter. We have been able to run most of the days, which is very good news, said Boullier, after McLaren finished fifth on the mileage charts at the final test with 453 laps completed.In terms of chassis, its important that we could go through all the systems, which we couldnt do last year. So for us its a good achievement. Now we have a reliable car, more or less, to start the season - so we are definitely more confident. Whats the 2016 pecking order? Crunching the numbers and analysing the lap times from F1s winter testing Honda ran two versions of their 2016 power unit across the two tests and their new F1 chief Yusuke Hasegawa confirmed the final speciffication had now been homologated for the first race, describing it as a good start point. Hampus Lindholm Ducks Jersey. And with the results of the MP4-31 on track matching their simulation data, Boullier believes the team can look to make continuation improvement once the season commences.There will be more to come now, he predicted. The base looks okay and there will be much more performance in the coming weeks. While reliability may have improved, McLarens position in the initial 2016 pecking order remains uncertain with the team themselves not making predictions about how competitive they will be at the first race.The team, who endured their worst season in 30 years in 2015, finished the second test with a 13th-fastest time which was two seconds adrift of Ferraris leading pace.Asked if they could be fighting with Force India and Toro Rosso, Boullier replied: We will see when we turn up in Melbourne with our full spec.Its true that Force India and Toro Rosso were competitive last year. Their cars were just an evolution of last year, so there is no reason why they will not be competitive.The first race of the 2016 F1 season, the Australian GP, is exclusively live on Sky Sports F1. The race in Melbourne starts at 5am on Sunday March 20. Every race live in 2016 Sky Sports F1 brings you every race live in 2016. 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