6 months, down the drain

Well, it's official.  The Chicago Cubs have become the biggest joke in professional sports.  For such a storied franchise, nothing in the world can explain how a team laden with so much talent could implode with such alacrity.  Or can it?  I'm going to try.

Well, first things first, the Cubs didn't hit.  No surprise there, seeing as how this team scored a grand total of 6 runs in the 2007 playoffs versus the Arizona Diamondbacks, and were swept 3-0.  How many times did they score this playoff season?  6.  What was the series record? 3-0.  Carbon copy.  No runs = no wins = no advancing = no championship.  About as simple as it gets.  The averages were abyssmal and I could throw Alfonso Soriano, the Human Strikeout, under the bus all winter long, but I won't.  Too easy.  Two men who actually showed up this series: Mark DeRosa and Derrek Lee.  Lee was on base 3 times in Game 3, the only game in which I felt the Cubs had multiple chances to win, and no one was anywhere close to driving him in, save Daryle Ward.  Aramis Ramirez could not figure out Dodger pitching, and the Cubs were lost without his bat.  I am not going anywhere near the $40 million problem named Kosuke Fukudome.

Let's move past that ridiculous lack of hitting to something far more disturbing.  The pitching was atrocious.  Ryan Dempster, the invincible force at Wrigley Field this year, had no clue how to pitch with any sort of efficiency or effect in Game 1.  7 walks in 4.2 IP is not good, as you probably have figured already.  Add in one VERY fat pitch to James Loney, and you have a recipe for absolute disaster.  Carlos Zambrano actually did not pitch that bad.  2 ER out of the total 6 R they put up on him, and he threw a ton of pitches for a defense that let him down.  More on the defense later, but he did whatever he could in that fateful 2nd inning, and it is totally unfair to ask him to get 6 outs in an inning.  He made several pitches that could have limited the damage to 1 or 2 runs, but the errors absolutely killed him.  By the time Russell Martin stepped up, the bases were loaded and Z fell behind 3-1.  He had to throw a pitch over the plate, and all the credit in the world to Martin for crushing it into the gap.  He did what any respectable hitter should: sit on a pitch over the plate and don't miss.  By the time Game 3 rolled around, Rich Harden had no realistic chance to bring the Cubs back after giving up 2 early runs.  While Harden wasn't really that bad, it was too little (4.1 IP), too late (Game 3 on the road).  The strength of the 2008 Chicago Cubs, their aces in the hole, were trumped by superior hitting by the Dodger and a total lack of run support.  Ted Lilly, arguably the strongest pitcher down the stretch for the Cubs, never threw a pitch.  A 17-game winner, riding the pine when the Cubs needed pitching.  Lou Piniella should be ashamed.

And now, the coup d' grac, the unacceptable, alarmingly, horrendous Cubs defense.  An error by every Cubs infielder in Game 2, missed opportunities to turn double plays throughout the series, and a return to 7-year-old Little League quality play.  I really feel like the Cubs allowed all the pressure of 100 years and the best NL record to get to them.  Hard-hit, taylor-made double play ball to Mark DeRosa, trickling away so that instead of 2, they get NONE?  A hard-hit chopper to Derrek Lee, the GOLD GLOVE 1B, clanking away, and him spinning aroudn to find it, no outs recorded?  These things just don't happen in the playoffs, to a normal Major League baseball team.

 So curses aside, the Los Angeles Dodgers deserves all the props in the world, because they absolutely beat the cleats off of the Chicago Cubs.  They came in with a great game plan, they stacked up well against the Cubs, executed when they needed to, and after grabbing ahold of the momentum, the at-bat, the game, and the series, whatever, never let go.  They throttled the Cubs with great defense, timely hitting, and lights-out pitching.  Everything the Cubs expected to do to the Dodgers, L.A. turned it around on them.  Congrats Dodgers, good luck in the NLCS vs. the Philadelphia Phillies.

 And to the 2008 Chicago Cubs, I say...nothing.  They know what they did to me, to the fans, to the city of Chicago.  They know they are the laughing stock of pro sports.  And they deserve to be, after what they did.  They know all this, and hoefully, they will remember this forever.  Let them stew on it for a few months over the winter, and we'll see if next year brings anything different.  If the Cubs make the 2009 post-season, we'll find out just what sort of resolve this team has.  Until then, they need to be gawked at and poked fun at and laughed at.  The way they played that series, it's as much as they deserve.