Cubs Drop The Ball Against Dodgers

Dodgers 10, Cubs 3

CHICAGO, Oct. 2 -- What they saw, that was more than just an error. The second baseman, face down in the Wrigley dirt, crawling for the ball that just pinged from his glove -- yes, an entire crowd understood what this meant. This was the physical incarnation of Chicago's tumble, and though Mark DeRosa committed the error, its visceral resonance spread to a team, to a stadium, to an understanding generation of North Siders. They recognized in DeRosa's error the same quality suddenly apparent in their baseball team's now-endangered season: A tumble got in the way of something great.

For as long as folks recall Chicago's 2008 season -- more dead than alive after Thursday night's 10-3 loss to Los Angeles at Wrigley Field -- they'll likely recall the second inning, when the Cubs fell behind for good, undone by one play. A play that instantly turned Wrigley from raucous to silent. A play where DeRosa (.285, 21 home runs), one of Chicago's most admired contributors, all but guaranteed that the Cubs will go down to the Dodgers in this division series, which they now trail 2-0.

The scene: There was one out. Los Angeles runners, both of whom reached with hits, waited on first and third. The Cubs had Carlos Zambrano on the mound in full maverick mode -- firing fastballs in the high-90s, taunting Manny Ramírez with the high heat, raising the Wrigley crowd into stand-for-every-pitch delirium. This was the Zambrano Chicago needed. When he struck out Matt Kemp in the second after allowing those two hits, the moment doubled as a signal: On this night, Zambrano had the stuff to pry himself from any jam.

And it looked like that would happen here.

Los Angeles second baseman Blake DeWitt pounded a grounder to DeRosa. One bounce, then two. DeRosa set his knees like a hockey goalie, and planted both feet; you only stop a ball coming this hard if you're ready. The ball bounded into his mitt, and then trickled out. A sure inning-ending double play had dissolved into a sad recovery attempt. DeRosa lunged forward, landing on his chest, and reached for the ball. He tried a too-late flip to second, no luck. Everybody was safe. Los Angeles had its first run. And the gates opened for more.

After another fielding error on the next play, when first baseman Derek Lee couldn't handle a Casey Blake chopper, pitcher Chad Billingsley struck out. But Rafael Furcal bunted for a single to drive home another run, and then Russell Martin tattooed a 3-1 fastball into left center, driving in three more. By inning's end, Zambrano had allowed five runs, four of them unearned. And just like that, Chicago's season -- 97 wins, a division championship, a slow-cooking belief that this was the year -- folded into a giant, familiar letdown. Fans returned to their old Cubbie neuroticisms, and watched the rest of the game in relative quiet.

"I don't think you can win 97 ballgames playing that way," Chicago Manager Lou Piniella said. "It wasn't good baseball. In fact, the last two days have been probably the worse two games we've played all year. It wasn't fun to watch."

The Cubs, and especially DeRosa, knew the implications of losing Game 2. Since 1995, when the wild-card era began, only three teams have overcome 0-2 series deficits in the first round. Because of that, DeRosa had tabbed this game as must-win.

"I think it's pretty do-or-die," he said beforehand. "I do. You don't want to get on that four and a half hour plane flight down 0-2." Then, addressing the pressure of the situation, he said: "I just think sometimes you need to live for the moment, whether you fail or whether you get a big hit or whether you strike out with the bases loaded, you want to be in that situation, live to be in that situation. Easier said than done. There's a lot of pressure in this environment and there's a lot of pressure with what's written about on a daily basis with this team."

Everything that happened after the second inning secured the Cubs' downfall. Billingsley limited Chicago to one run and five hits in 6 2/3 innings. Ramírez socked a fifth-inning homer -- his second of the series -- that landed about two Red Line stops beyond the center field fence. Though Zambrano surrendered just three earned runs, Los Angeles piled on with scores in each of the final three innings. Boos, boos, more boos. Chicago finished the game with more errors (four) than runs, and more runs than hope.

So was this one really the do-or-die? Piniella had considered the question before this game.

"Oh, I don't look at it like that; I really don't," he said. "I think it would be a huge advantage for the Dodgers, but do-or-die? If we lose tonight, well, we might as well just stay home and go home and forfeit the game in Los Angeles. I don't see us doing that."