Extra bases

• Junior Lake has retired from being an infielder.

The rookie, who came up in the Cubs' system as a shortstop and third baseman, told Sveum that he will focus solely on the outfield, and not play infield anymore -- starting in Winter League play in the Dominican Republic.

"In his terms, he's retired [from the infield]," Sveum said on Sunday. "That's his quote."

• The Cubs rank 14th in the National League in on-base percentage, and that's a stat Sveum would like to see improve next year -- especially since they are eighth in slugging percentage. The Cubs also lead the National League in extra-base hits and have the second-most home runs in the league. They just can't get anyone on base ahead of the hits.

"The bottom line is the on-base percentage," Sveum said of the team's offensive struggles this year. "We've slugged plenty, but haven't had the people on base to have crooked numbers up there consistently."

• Rizzo doubled in his first at-bat in the first on Sunday to become the first Cubs left-handed hitter to reach 40 doubles since Mark Grace had 41 doubles in 2000. Rizzo finished with 65 extra-base hits this season, the most by a Cubs left-handed hitter since Grace had that many in 1999.

"I'm going to take a lot of positives out of this year," Rizzo said. "The only thing people are going to ride me on is the average, but things could've been different there. Things didn't go my way sometimes, but that's the game of baseball. I'm not happy about that at all, but I'm going into the offseason pretty confident I can hit .300 and do all the other things, as well."

Rizzo, who finished with a .233 average in his first full season, and Nate Schierholtz (32 doubles) are the first Cubs left-handed-hitting teammates to each reach 30 doubles in the same season since Jacque Jones (32 doubles) and Juan Pierre (31 doubles) in 2006.

In May, Rizzo signed a seven-year, $41 million contract extension. That didn't affect his hitting.

"One of the goals at the beginning of this year -- and it was the same last year -- was to be the starting first baseman for the Cubs," Rizzo said. "Obviously, now it'll be for a few more years. Like I said when I signed it, it's security. I get to play baseball and don't have to worry about anything else except playing baseball."

• Castro totaled 666 at-bats, most in the National League. Baltimore's Manny Machado led the Majors with 667 at-bats.

• The Cubs finished 25-51 against the NL Central, matching the Astros for the lowest winning percentage by any team in its own division. Chicago went 7-12 against St. Louis, 5-14 against Cincinnati, 6-13 against Milwaukee, and 7-12 against Pittsburgh. It's the first time they've finished with double-digit losses against four teams since 2002.