Cubs are going to wine the next 3.

I just cant help but shake the "here we go again " feeling b/c last nites performance was so different from the regular season, it just seemed they were rushing in all aspects of the game…..I suspect that feeling was echoing throughout the stadium, leading to the libray-esque atmosphere

My 2 gripes was the crowd and Lou… and you covered them both. Seems like Lou forgets how to manage in these 5 game series.

and I agree with much of it, but sometimes it hurts so much to love this team that I wish I didn’t. But it’s a codpendant dysfunctional relationship and I can’t stop it. Doggone this stuff is painful sometimes

Z has said this is his team. tonight he gets to rpove it—one way or the other.

Isn’t Harden our most consistent SP? I wondered that when the rotation was set — he will be limited to one start in this series. Wouldn’t he be a more reliable start tonight than Z?

But the offense is what worries me. Lou kept bringng up the starting pitching and relief work during his press conference last night, did he even mention the offense?

I felt lifeless last night after that Grand Slam… once I saw Dempster’s pitch count was about 99 going into the 5th I had a feeling that we were in trouble, unfortunately it was right. Unfortunately this feeling is carrying into the morning, although by gametime it will turn into excitement and anticipation. Losing Game 1 of a 5 game series sucks though.

I have never been more deeply disappointed and saddened by a one game performance. The Cubs failed on all cylinders last night. Alfonso Soriano continued with the disapperance act of last year’s playoffs against Arizona. The offense overall reverted to it’s dysfunctional and inept way. Ryan Dempster puckered up big time. The achilles heel of this team, middle relief, reared it’s ugly head.

Give credit to Joe Torre and the Dodgers. They executed and played a smart ballgame even though, like Arizona, they are allegedly “inferior” on paper.

Very worried about today’s game. Carlos Zambrano has become an unstable wildcard. And you just know that Torre and the Dodger hitters are going to try and get inside his head. I wish Rich Harden or Ted Lilly were going today. Soriano MUST show up because it has been proven that he is the catalyst that makes everything go on this offense.

they will be fine. If not, I fear this will be the end of the line. If Z can win tonight (and let’s face it, if he doesn’t this is over anyway), then I think Harden will mow them down on Saturday and we can take this thing.

Al is exactly right, there was no reason to leave Dempster out there last night. Period. Not with a fully rested bullpen.

http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2008/10/fan-arrested-for-throwing-ball-at-manny-ramirez.html

Most certainly a bad idea.

For a hot minute there, I thought Johnny B. Baker was back in the dugout.

This was my first playoff game ever at Wrigley Field. It was a disappointment, and it was COLD (in Section 512). The crowd was definitely older than what I’ve usually seen. No fatcats up in that section, just some longtime Cub fans. They got excited at the right times, there just weren’t enough of those last night.

Two stories:
The last game I attended alone, I was seated behind a group of women slightly older than me, on a “girl’s day out”. When they found out I was there by myself, they asked to take a picture with me to “make their husbands think they had been fooling around.” Last night, a younger woman a few seats down suddenly said, “Can I get a picture with you?” And I thought, huh? Then she said, “You look like Mayor Daley, but you’re wearing a Cubs cap. It’s hilarious.” The guy next to me said, “I think that’s a slam.” How the mighty have fallen.

From our back-row seats, we had a birds-eye view of the Chicago schools demonstration by the McDonald’s at Clark and Addison. In fact, the loudspeaker was often louder than the public address system in the ballpark. At one point, they began a chant. We weren’t quite sure if it was something about “Save schools now!” or “No Bob How-ry”. Not to downplay the seriousness of the crisis in the public schools, but it was also fun to listen to the preachers as if they were critiquing the game on the field.

I couldn’t agree more about the crowd. What would you attribute that to? Well-heeled jerks driving out the true fans? I don’t know if it was just TBS’s ambient mike or what, but it almost sounded like the crowd was booing throughout the entire early part of the game (even with the Cubs up).

I almost feel like it would benefit this team to get on the road. Win one tonight and get away from the pressure cooker and the psuedo fans.

Most good and long-standing Cub fans have an impending fear of dread and therefore are rightfully cautious and reserved. In all honesty how can you blame them. There is no way you can deflect the puckering up and ineptitude of the product on the field to the crowd in the stands.

I had to leave home last night for a bit during the game. I left at the end of the 3rd inning and paused my DVR. As I was pulling back into my driveway a black cat (stray I guess) ran across the driveway in front of me. I fought so hard to ignore it and pretend like there are no curses. But as I watched the game unfold, I kept thinking about that damn cat.

You’ve officially lost points (for whatever its worth) for putting “pick to click” on the right nav bar! Just saw it this morning and vomited a bit in my mouth….

Lets get them in game two!

I’m not sure if it was the feed or not, but it seemed like there was a silent, monotonous "boo"ing sound throughout the first 6-7 innings. It was weird.

1. Marshall’s pitch to Manny was a, dare I say, perfect pitch. How Manny got to it, let alone golfed it out is anyone’s guess. It reminded me of a few of Rami’s shots.

2. I stay out of the majority of game threads and read them later, and have for a while . Granted, the negativity does creep in there when things go bad, but when you say “don’t attack others”, I guess you have to point out that it goes both ways. Better to ignore the ledgejumpers than to attack them, because THAT is when it gets ugly in there.

3. Dick Stockton made about 400 mistakes during that telecast. Truly painful to listen to.

4. Most Important Start by Z EVER tonight. Let’s hope he’s up for it.

wouldnt be too bad with Harden and a red hot Lilly going in games 3 and 4…..its going to be a suspenseful night

And I’ll tell you what, I don’t feel good about it. I’m being very honest in saying that I don’t have a lot of faith in Zambrano for this game. Torre and the Dodger hitters are going to consciously try to get into his fragile skull. Hopefully Piniella is sitting down with Zambrano today and counseling his emotions.

I made that prediction yesterday. The Cubs can split the first two by winning tonight’s game at Wrigley. They can split the next two in LA. Then, they can come back to Chicago to win game 5.

Maybe, the 8:30 PM start time will encourage a more raucous crowd tonight at Wrigley.

yes, this was on Lou…I was literally yelling at him through the TV when he left Marshall in to pitch to Manny. Come on! Demp just didn’t have it, interesting take on the ump…didn’t think of that. Yeah, tonight’s where Z earns his money and needs to show that he is our premier big game pitcher along with our entire offense. I’m still pissed at Soriano’s poor showing last night, Lowe is good, but seriously that was horrible.

I did not think the home plate umpire was that bad. Dempster was. The HR Manny hit was impossible. Right off the top of his shoes. The crowd was probably made up of those who cold afford tickets, not average fans. There were a lot of tickets on web sites for sale and a friend who was at the game said scalpers had plenty of tickets for sale. Where do they get all these tickets and who is buying. Good question, but it didn’t seem like a “regular” crowd. The only thing I take comfort in is that we have Z-Harden and Lilly going. That’s the best 2-3-4 we could put on the field. The best thing that could happen tonight is a big win to get our mojo back.

The songs they were playing weren’t exactly going to fire anyone up. The song they came out to was just bad.

2007 — 3 games, 14 abs, 2 hits, 1 bb, 4 ks

2008 — 1 game, 5 abs, 2 ks

Doesn’t make tonight technically a must-win, but, yeah, it’s a must-win. Hope Z has his big boy stuff and sends us to LA tied. I think that would go a long way to erasing the taste of last night out of our mouths. Two out of three is manageable. Three-game sweep will be very tough. Maybe too tough.

Go Cubs Go.

Face it, many fans are dreading this first round. If they win, we don’t feel joy — just relief, as if a loaded gun hand been pulled away from our forehead. If they lose, we console ourselves that it was going to happen all along anyway. Makes it kinda hard to get excited, eh? The only comfort is that the players don’t buy into this. In fact this might make it easier for them to play on the road.

First off I think your certainty in the “its all on Lou” is wrong. Is it reasonable to think that Dempster needed to be lifted in the 4th? Sure. Its also reasonable to think that Dempster has succeeded all season in getting out of those situations. I heard on WSCR last night the stat that Dempster led the league in getting out of bases loaded situations without any runs scored. The middle relief has also been so questionable that I think you stick with your ace. So to think that its such a certain situation that Dempster should have been lifted, to me, is just wrong. To be so certain that this is on Lou is wrong.

Dempster threw a pitch to Loney that was down the heart of the plate. The Cubs failed to get in additional runs that they could have and they also tried to continually take a sinker ball pitcher out of the park rather than try to get base runners on.

I’m also not sure why there is all this focus on the fans. Sorry, but even myself in my car last night was nervous as heck. I imagine there were lots of fans in that same place. And often the attitude of the fans is driven by what is going on on the field of play. To me, the fans is so secondary to so many different things that happened on the field. I do not understand why this has played such a primary role both on the blogs and in the media. David Kaplan spent half of his show last night talking about the fans.

And yes, I will say that this all is far too reminiscent of 2007. Last night it was the same offensive gameplan that they had in the three game sweep at the hand of the Diamondbacks. I sure hope that changes tonight.

His timing was off. He just wasn’t ready for the playoffs to start. When the crowd would get something started, the way he would play would quickly bring them down again. He seemed to be affected by the cold, not delivering at the right moments. Maybe he was hiding an injury to his hand. He didn’t show any power. All around, he had a bad game and it affected everyone in the park.

Yeah, that’s right, I’m putting the blame right where it belongs…on the organist!

I read several Cubs-Dodgers series predictions from journalistic sources I respect (most prominently Baseball Prospectus) which predicted the Dodgers would win game one but the Cubs would win the series.

The Cubs have Z, Harden, and Lilly going in games 2-3-4. I ain’t gonna panic yet, how about you?

Fontenot manning 2nd, DeRosa manning RF. Fukudome did have a fine defensive play, but it left me thinking if DeRosa could do the same thing— which I believe he can.

At least if he starts Fukudome, put him at the bottom of the lineup. Theriot, obviously, has been hitting great at the 2-hole. Fukudome, hitting 2nd? REALLY?

but do you think there will come a time when the first round is best of 7 games?

I know they don’t want to push the end of the World Series to mid-November when it has the potential to be played in a cold-weather city, but it’s just frustrating that over 180 games played between spring training and the regular season could all come crashing down if you play poorly in a couple first round games.

I’m sure the players and managers wouldn’t argue too much if they wanted to remove 4 or 5 spring training games to start the season a few days earlier and allow a best of 7 first round.

Plus, the playoff games are too spread out as it is in a lot of these match ups. Look at Boston and L.A….they play W, F, Sun, M, W. Only one potential back to back. This is baseball, people, we’re used to playing 20 games in 20 days. If anything, it gives a huge advantage to teams that lack depth in their starting rotations.

No matter what, the Cubs didn’t show up last night, and that’s not why I wrote this post. However, the system just seems flawed to me.

GO CUBS, let’s get em tonight Z!

And for the first time Al’s post slightly disapoints. This whole fan excitement level thing is driving me nuts. the Cubs have lost 7 straight post season games, one of which was an utter nightmare. The fans want results and will respond accordingly. Hell, I wouldn’t be embarrassed if everyone decided to boycott going to games until results happen in big games. As far as other issues like the umpires or Lou’s decision making, cmon. If Lou would have went to our so dominant middle relief he would have been called out for that. Bottom line no one can manage around 7 walks in 4 2/3 innings. You tempt the baseball gods, you lose. The umpire was the same for both pitchers, did you all not notice Derek Lowe getting a tad frustrated early on? I saw one glaring mistake and that was the non call to Derek Lowe in the third. Big time players step up, even when the going gets tough! I’m just a little sad about all of this finger pointing. I said it last night and I feel the same way. If you go out there and play like champions you’ll be treated like such, if you play like the way the cubs did last night, you’ll hear crickets.

this year’s team with last year’s, or the 2003 team. But the simple fact is that the Cubs have been to the post season 3 times in the past 5 years.

They are now on a 7 game post season losing streak, 4 of those at Wrigley.

Again, I realize that’s its not fair to burden this year’s team with previous year’s numbers, but this is what the fans are going through. And it hurts. bad.

I’m trying to be optimistic for the rest of the series, but its tough.

When you are up 2-0 you can’t pull the person who has been your best pitcher the entire season for Jason Marquis. I can maybe understand Marshall bcz of the lefty lefty matchup, but Marquis can’t be more effective than Demp even on a bad night. If it is a tie game we have a different scenario, but I think Demp should have stayed in…..As far as Kosuke…he should not be hitting 2nd! Put him 8th, but he needs to be in the lineup bcz of that D

but game 1 is on them. I wish Lou would manage every playoff game like it’s an elimination game. If they knew Demp didn’t have it, take him out after 5 and let Marmol go 2 innings, and Wood go 2 innings. I’d rather win game 1 and not have either available for game 2 than lose game 1.

I hope Fontenot is in at 2nd, Derosa in right, and Theriot in the 2 hole.

With all the bad stuff being said, this team is different than last year and they’ll bounce back. Z is going to step up and throw a gem (please God).

Today is gonna be a long day at work. I’ll be there tonight, let’s make sure Wrigley is rocking.

I watched the first few innings of the game when the score was still 2-0. However I had to play softball last night. This means I had to leave my TV. We all know what happened next.

Tonight, I am not leaving the TV. I won’t leave my TV for the rest of the series. Sorry guys, my bad. The Cubs should be able to win this in 4 now.

It’s game 2 of the postseason. Zambrano LIVES for this kind of game! He’s a professional and will be ready to go, especially after he didn’t get the start for game one and we lost.

I expect Big Z to give us a great shot at a win tonight.

Remember this is a 5 game series! Can’t win it in 1.

So where was that quick hook Lou used in last years first playoff game? He got it backwards. I’ll be there tonight ready to make noise. Hopefully not the noise you make when you’re having a stroke.

There’s nothing to do – all day and most of the evening, in fact – but try to regroup and win tonight.

The team has to try to relax. The stress makes them press. We have to try to relax, hard as it might be. While I don’t excuse Dempster’s performance or Lou’s failure to go to the pen the game was eminently workable even after Loney’s home run. But you would have thought that it was a walkoff from the way everyone in the park wearing blue seemed to throw in the towel.

Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no! And it aint over now. Let’s do it!

Now all we have to do is wait eleven more hours.

Z will live up to expectations