Evening Box Score: Cubs Sunk By Dodgers

By Marcus Gilmer in News on Oct 2, 2008 2:00AM

Well, that didn't take long. All the regular season optimism is gone as Wrigleyville descended into panic Wednesday night while the Dodgers thumped the Cubs 7-2 to take 1-0 in their NL Divisional Series. Ryan Dempster, who pitched so well at home all season long, flirted with danger all night, walking seven and loading the bases in the third only to get himself out. But if you flirt with danger long enough, it'll bite you in the ass and it bit Dempster in the form of a fifth inning grand slam off the bat of James Loney. Sean Marshall gave up a homer to Manny Ramirez in the seventh, the Dodgers added another run in the eighth, and Russell Martin homered off of Marquis in the ninth to cap things off.

And what of the Cubs' offense? The best word we can come up with is impotent. The top five of the order (Soriano, Fukudome, Lee, Ramirez, and Soto) went a combined 2-for-19 - including an 0-for-5 performance from the 136 Million Dollar Man - with two walks, four strikeouts, and a total of eight left on base. Things looked promising early when Jim Edmonds singled in the second and Mark DeRosa followed with a home run to right field to give the Cubs an early 2-0 lead. But as the game wore on and the Cubs fell further behind, their hitters looked more and more baffled by Derek Lowe and the Dodgers' bullpen, including former Cub great Greg Maddux who pitched the ninth.

So what's next? Well, we hope Z has a better night than Dempster, whose uncharacteristic meltdown at home has to be the most confounding and frustrating things for Cubs fans. As for the offense's complete inability to produce when they needed to, well, that was sort of surprising. Cubs fans have grown used to such a power outage over the year (see: 2007, Divisional Series versus Arizona). Thing is, this year, if the Cubs fell behind 4-2, they seemed to be the kind of team to fight their way back. There was no sign of that team tonight at Wrigley. Of course, when your pitching staff gives up seven runs...We can only hope Lou can fire his offense up before tomorrow night.

You want another foreboding stat? Tonight was the Cubs' seventh straight postseason loss dating back to Game 5 of the 2003 NLCS against the Marlins. Oh, and they're 0-10 in playoff series when losing Game One.

But no, we're not panicking. We swear.

Game Two is tomorrow night at 8:30 p.m. (screw you, TBS) with Zambrano taking on Chad Billingsley.