No new curses this time, or need for any. No goats, literal or metaphorical. No black cats, no Steve Bartman. No real chokes, only a general team-wide collapse. The Cubs were swept by the Arizona Diamondbacks in three games in the first round of the NL playoffs, and the only surprise was how quick and all but painless it was.
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But anyone who thought the Cubs better than the Diamondbacks was only guessing. I still can’t quite understand how the Snakes won a league-leading 90 games while being outscored overall by their opponents, but they’re a young, talented team and the Cubs allowed them every chance to succeed. With their experience, the Cubs were favored, but as team leader Derrek Lee warned before the series began (perhaps drawing on his experience as a member of those 2003 Marlins), youth can express itself as brash conviction while experience makes players tentative. That’s how it played out, and the Cubs’ troubles were compounded by their apparent lack of respect for their opponents.
Count me a defender of manager Lou Piniella’s decision to remove ace Carlos Zambrano early from his first-game pitchers’ duel with Brandon Webb. I don’t believe Piniella was punting the game to concentrate his resources on winning the three middle games in the best-of-five series, but I do believe arrogance played a part in his reasoning. After six innings, Piniella clearly thought he could have it both ways in game one: turn the ball over to his reliable bullpen against a wearying Webb, then bring a lightly used Zambrano back with three days’ rest to clinch the series (he hoped) before Webb got another turn to pitch.
The Cubs’ last critical at-bat came after Arizona starter Livan Hernandez walked the bases full with one out in the fifth inning of the third game. Mark DeRosa had been tagging the ball during batting practice, and he was my pick to click in the game. The 42,157 fans in attendance at Wrigley Field, many of whom had shown up early enough for batting practice, felt the same, and the crowd was as loud as I’d heard since the 2003 playoffs. Hernandez fell behind 3-1, but then DeRosa swung at a low breaking ball and grounded into a double play. That was the story of the game and the series. Hernandez walked five but he erased three of the runners on double plays. In the end, he always got the Cubs to swing at his pitch, while the Cubs were giving in to the Arizona hitters.
“Soriano, you suck!” shouted someone behind him, and Soriano popped out to right field to end the season.
