PITTSBURGH — Pop the champagne bottles: The Chicago Cubs are heading to the postseason. The Cubs clinched a playoff spot Wednesday with their 8-4 win against the Pittsburgh Pirates. It’s their first postseason berth since the pandemic-shortened 2020 season and first in a full season since 2018. They’re well positioned to host a wild-card series beginning Sept. 30 at Wrigley Field. The Cubs ...

Ian Happ, Moisés Ballesteros and Nico Hoerner of the Chicago Cubs celebrate a two-run home run hit by Happ during the first inning against the Pittsburgh Pirates at PNC Park on Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2025, in Pittsburgh.

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PITTSBURGH — Pop the champagne bottles: The Chicago Cubs are heading to the postseason.

The Cubs clinched a playoff spot Wednesday with their 8-4 win against the Pittsburgh Pirates. It’s their first postseason berth since the pandemic-shortened 2020 season and first in a full season since 2018.

They’re well positioned to host a wild-card series beginning Sept. 30 at Wrigley Field. The Cubs (88-64) hold a 5 1/2-game lead over the San Diego Padres for the top National League wild-card spot — and No. 4 NL playoff seed — entering the Padres’ game Wednesday night in New York against the Mets.

Six months after opening the season at the Tokyo Dome, the Cubs’ challenging journey to get back to the playoffs culminated at PNC Park.

Manager Craig Counsell, in his second year at the helm, expected the mid-March trip to Japan to be a bonding experience for the Cubs. That week overseas ultimately was the beginning of something the organization has been working toward since the franchise-altering 2021 trade deadline that saw president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer move World Series champions Anthony Rizzo, Kris Bryant and Javier Báez.

“It was good to put something hard in front of you right at the start,” Counsell said Wednesday, referring to the Tokyo Series. “That’s a really good way to start your season in hindsight because it makes you focus on something really, really quickly and serves as an attention getter — almost to lock you in, so to speak. I think it accomplished that for us.”

The Cubs rode the majors’ best offense to a 59-39 start and weathered a season-ending elbow injury to pitcher Justin Steele in April while also losing fellow starters Shota Imanaga and Jameson Taillon to injuries for weeks.

Through the first three months, Kyle Tucker proved to be the slugger the Cubs had been missing, while Pete Crow-Armstrong’s MVP-level all-around game and Seiya Suzuki putting up nearly a season’s worth of home runs and RBIs made the lineup a nightmare for opposing pitchers.

The Cubs didn’t let an up-and-down second half derail the season. They never let the concerning stretches spiral into something more. They still haven’t lost more than three consecutive games this year.

“You kind of get into a headspace, in a mode where you know what this group’s capable of, and it’s not really just about getting into the postseason,” shortstop Dansby Swanson told the Chicago Tribune. “That’s obviously a step. In order to truly win, you have to get in the postseason. But there’s no time to reflect.

“We’ve just got to keep going and continuing to play our brand of baseball, which I think we’ve been doing over the last week-plus. It’s important to continue going into the end of the season — and whatever is after — feeling good about where we are.”

Counsell and the Cubs planned to fully enjoy the moment postgame, regardless of what awaits in October and the team’s loftier goals. The season is so long and such a grind that all the wins, big or little, are worth celebrating and appreciating.

“It’s celebrating that you have accomplished something and it’s celebrating us being together,” Counsell said. “That’s what it’s about, that’s what you celebrate. And so it’s an appreciation for each other and the work that we’ve done to get to this point.

“Of course every team that’s in this situation is thinking ahead to a certain extent and wants to do more. We’re in the same boat.”

Ian Happ, Nico Hoerner and Colin Rea are the only players who were part of the last Cubs playoff team. That 2020 season was a subdued affair, though, and their postseason experience ended in a two-game sweep by the Miami Marlins.

Happ is the lone Cub remaining from the 2018 team that held off on a postgame celebration after securing a playoff spot, focused on what it expected to be a raucous clubhouse bash when it locked up a third straight division title.

That chance never arrived. The Milwaukee Brewers, managed by Counsell, forced a Game 163 tiebreaker for the division that the Cubs lost. They then saw their postseason end swiftly with a one-game wild-card loss to the Colorado Rockies.

Wednesday’s postgame clubhouse hoopla was a long time coming.

“It’s funny because when you’re in this position, you stay so in the moment, in the day, because it’s the only way to approach the end of the season,” Happ told the Tribune. “You can’t get ahead yourself. And so at some point, I’ll take a minute and reflect on it.”

The Cubs enter the postseason trending in the right direction.

They have shown a prolific ability to score runs with a deep lineup that’s trying to fully recapture its level of production in the first three months. Recent stretches by Happ, Crow-Armstrong and Michael Busch have the lineup again looking reliably dangerous.

The emergence of rookie right-hander Cade Horton — with a 0.93 ERA in 11 starts since the All-Star break — has helped the rotation post the sixth-best ERA in the majors. Coupled with a bullpen built around an eclectic mix of veteran relievers, starters-turned-relievers and elite consistency from their high-leverage arms, the Cubs believe they have a well-balanced roster capable of being a tough out in October.

“We knew from early on that this team, we have something here,” Taillon said. “We’ve got a good chance to make some noise. It’s a close group, and when you’re close with all your teammates, it makes you want to be a part of it and be involved that much more and just contribute and help. We’re all pulling for each other all the time.