Late Night Box Score: Cubs vs Dodgers - Second Verse, Same As The First

By Marcus Gilmer in News on Oct 3, 2008 5:01AM

Wrigleyville is shell-shocked right now and us Cubs fan can only shake our heads and wonder what the hell has happened. After a sharp start to the night, the Cubs booted the game away (literally) in the second inning and never recovered as the Dodgers topped the Cubs again, 10-3. The Dodgers now have a two-games-to-none lead in the series and the Cubs are one game away from being swept from the playoffs in the first round for the second straight year.

The game started with flashes of Good Z, going 1-2-3 in the first, including a strikeout of Manny Ramirez. Soriano started the bottom of the inning with a single and stole second and...that was it. Once again, the Cubs left a man in scoring position. In the top of the second, with a runner on first and no outs, Ryan Theriot misplayed a ball (ruled a singled) allowing the runners to advance to first and third. After a Z strikeout, DeRosa misplayed a ball which allowed a run to score. Casey Blake then reached first on an error by Derek Lee, loading the bases and then...you know what? Screw it. Russell Martin eventually doubled with the bases loaded and the Cubs found themselves headed to the their half of the inning down 5-0. In the fifth, Manny added a homer, and then the Dodgers continued to smack the ball around, adding runs in the seventh, eighth, and ninth innings. The Cubs scored a run on back-to-back doubles by Mark DeRosa and Jim Edmonds in the seventh and then scored a couple of runs in the ninth as they attempted a comeback. Too little, too late, though maybe it'll give them a bit of momentum going into the weekend games.

So what went wrong? Well, obviously the infield did Zambrano no favors in the second with their miscues. If nothing else, we'll be asking ourselves what could have been had the infield not misplayed so many grounders (side note - all four infielders recorded errors last night). As it was, those errors extended the inning and led to Martin's bases-clearing double. With Zambrano being so unpredictable this year, the Cubs needed to do everything they could to help him out when he was on, and they failed.

And what of the Cubs bats? Well, we could almost copy and paste our assessment from last night here, but there were a few things different. The top five (Soriano, Theriot, Lee, Ramirez, DeRosa) went a combined went 6 for 20 with two RBIs, three runs scored, and seven left on base. Those batters have to produce if the Cubs want to have a chance to stay alive. So far as a Cub, Soriano is 3 for 22 as a Cub and Fukudome's regular season struggles continued into the postseason as he's 0 for 8. Mark DeRosa, egregious infield error aside, is the only player who seems to be trying from the plate, responsible for driving in four of the Cubs' five runs in this series.

Pretty much everything has gone wrong for the Cubs as they've been outscored 17-5 in two games against, admittedly, one of the hottest teams in baseball heading into the playoffs. But please, TBS, spare us this curse bullshit. We know it's funny to play errors set to wacky music, but bullshit is bullshit. We can only hope new Cub ace Rich Harden brings his best and the Cubs bats wake up for Game Three, which happens Saturday at 9:00 p.m. in L.A. Hiroki Kuroda takes the hill for the Dodgers.