Why The Cubs Lost To The Dodgers

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Just last night, all of Cub nation and I suffered through our ninth straight posteason loss to cap off our third straight postseason series defeat. For the second straight year, the Cubs were swept out of the division series by a team of the NL West, as the Dodgers played the role of the 2007 Diamondbakcs and thoroughly handled Chicago. Yet again, the Cubs fell horrendously short of expectations in a year where many expected them to make a run at their first championship in 100 years. However, a new era - century deux of  futility has begun, and year after year disappointed Cubs fans will pin their every hope to the fate of a semmingly cursed baseball team. Regardless, there is no time like the present - the Dodgers outplayed the Cubbies in every aspect - here are the reasons why the lighter shade of blue prevailed in three painless games.

Timely Hitting: Los Angeles scored fourteen of their twenty total runs in the series with two outs. Of the six runs that the Cubs managed in the entire three game span, only one came in a "clutch" situation. Time and time again, the Dodgers came through in situations that potentially allowed for a score. From Game One, when James Loney crushed a Ryan Dempster pitch into dead center field for a grand slam that officially ended the Cubs' only lead in the entire series from Loney's two-run double in the first inning of Game Three that gave LA an early 2-0 lead, which they would never relinquish.The Cubs, meanwhile could not come by a two out hit to save their postseason dreams, though they had two on base or a leadoff double on several occasions throughout the series. However, this was only the beginning of the Cubs' troubles - The Dodgers outplayed the Cubs in just about every facet of the game of baseball.

Clutch Starting Pitching: Los Angeles also outpitched the Cubs in every inning of each game. The starters in Game One, Derek Lowe and Ryan Dempster, seemed to present a pitchers' duell-like matchup. It seemed the Cubs would have a significant edge after Mark DeRosa shot one into the first row of the right-field bleachers. The two-run homer by DeRosa gave the Cubs a 2-0 lead in the second inning and many Cubs' fans imagined Dempster throwing a gem to give the hometown Cubbies an early series advantage. However, Dempster could not live up to his high expectations, as his control wavered from pitch to pitch and he seemingly never found a hold on the strike zone. his 14-3 record at home seemed to vanish as Dempster allowed seven Dodgers to reach via the walk, and finally, in the fifth inning, James Loney took advantage of the men on base. Dempster allowed a base hit and two walks, but had James Loney 0-2 with 2 outs before serving up a hanger down the middle of the plate. Loney, with a mighty cut, turned the game around, from 2-0 into 4-2. As mentioned, the Cubs would never again hold a lead in the entire series. In Game 2, Carlos Zambrano was billed to start against Chad Billingsely. Zambrano allowed five runs in the seond inning to again diminsh the Cubs' hopes. Unfortunately, only one of these runs was earned (see the Reliable Defense section). However, Zambrano's quality start (2 ER in 6 innings) was wasted, as the Cubs' O fell victim to Chad Billingsely's mastery. Billingsely had Cubs hitters guessing all night, allowing but one earned run to the most efficient offense in the National League, the team with the best run differential in all of baseball. The Dodgers owned the Cubs in Game 2, 10-3. In Los Angeles, Hiroki Kuroda pitched himself out of several early inning jams en route to a 3-1 victory. The Dodgers rode James Loney's aforementioned two-run double in the first inning to the NLCS. Rich Harden only allowed two earned runs, which should have been enough for the potent Chicago offense to come up with the victory, but Kuroda, who pitched a complete game against the Cubs at Wrigley earlier in the year, stymied the Cubs' hitters all night long.

Reliable Defense: The Dodgers, normally a fine defensive squad with the general exception of Manny Ramirez, committed just one error in the entire series. The error was charged to Casey Blake, who fell victim to a tough scoring call on a rocket shot to third hit by Kosuke Fukudome. The Cubs, meanwhile, committed six errors in the entire series, including four in the second game, which then included two in the second inning. Every infielder committed an error in game two, including the normally sure-handed Derrek Lee. These errors led to four unearned runs by LA in the second inning, only a stepping stone en route to their ten-run explosion. However, these early runs gave the Dodgers a nice cushion in game two, and this, as we all know, affects pitching style and hitting selection.

Stiff Bullpen: Los Angeles, apart from the closer Saito (who allowed two runs in the ninth inning of a rout in game two), boasted a bullpen that could shut the door on a rally and create a bridge from the starter to a victory. In Game One, the Cubs' bullpen, following Loney's grand slam, allowed solo home runs in three of the last four innings as the Dodgers put a possible rally out of reach. In the second game, apart from Saito, Corey Wade and Jonathan Broxton again combined to shut down the Cubs already sluggish offense. Game three featured a somehwat disappoining performance by the rookie phenom Corey Wade, but again fireballer Jonathan Broxton slammed the door on a possible eighth inning rally, an emotional point for the soon-to-be-NLCS-bound Dodgers. Yet again, the Dodgers were able to outperform the Cubs on this facet of the NLDS.

That was my brief synopsis of the Dodgers' crushing of the weak Cubs, whose NL-best record clearly meant nothing as Los Angeles proved it was the better team. Tune in for an article on the advantages of winning the wild card, and God bless.

-reliv1908