NLDS Game Two

[billroper]

daisy_knotwise stayed at home tonight with Katie and Julie while I braved Wrigley Field for tonight's 8:37 PM game against the Dodgers. The Dodgers won by a score of 10 to 3 in a game that was not as close as the score indicates. More random thoughts follow:

It's not often that you see each infielder for a team commit an error in the same game.

It's even less often that you see that team win the game. We didn't.

I now know what disease NLDS is campaigning against. It's the National Lousy Defense Society.

Amazingly, Zambrano didn't actually kill any of his infielders who helped the Cubs cough up five runs in the second inning. Four were unearned. All of them could have been prevented had they actually turned a double play on a double play grounder.

Manny Ramirez can hit a baseball a long way.

I suppose that Piniella figured the game was lost already, but I'm not sure sending Fukudome to the plate again after his first two at bats -- both strikeouts -- was the best idea unless you really like to hear the home team fans boo your players.

And sending Fukudome to the plate in the ninth inning was just pretty much incomprehensible.

Most major league hitters do not spin around like a top after failing to connect with the third strike. Maybe this amuses Japanese fans. Cubs fans, not so much.

Overall, I blame Mayor Daley. He was the one who had the city "negotiate" with the Wrigleyville bars so that they'd stop serving beer after the seventh inning in any potential clinching game. (Nice liquor license you've got there. Shame if anything should happen to it.) It looks like that won't be necessary.

The Cubs have now lost eight consecutive playoff games. Five of those were at Wrigley Field. I was there for all five of them.

You get home much faster when half of the fans have already left the park by the end of the game.