100 Years Even

Anyone that thought the Cubs were going to roll here or that viewed the Dodgers victory as an upset did not follow baseball this year. Over the entire season, the Cubs were the better team, but the team that the Dodgers have brought into October is not the same team they had from April to July. The acquisitions of Manny Ramirez and Casey Blake, to a lesser extent, have made this team very dangerous. Their pitching is also lights out as they led the league in ERA and opponents OBP, mainly attributed to their killer bullpen. The Cubs offense was great during the season, but got to face subpar pitching from Milwaukee, Houston, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis predominantly throughout the season.

Game 1 really set the pace for me. If Chicago could pull out two victories at home, they could lock the series. The biggest problem, which should have been expected, was that Dempster completely broke down. His stats for this season as a started do not correlate with his career stats as a reliever at all. At some point, the other foot would have to drop. Unfortunately for the Cubs, it happened in the postseason. James Loney's grand slam in this game completely took the home field advantage away from the Cubs as the Chicago crowd was completely dead from then on.

Game 2 continued the storyline of dead pitching for the Cubs. Carlos Zambrano's two starts since his no-hitter had been awful and this game continued the trend. Big Z keeps providing more evidence that he shouldn't be spoken of with the elite pitchers. Manny and Casey Blake gave the Dodgers exactly what they traded for, knocking in three runs and scoring four themselves. As an avid Cardinals fan, smelling the beginning of the end for the Cubs here was sweet.

Game 3 featured the same shoddy starting pitching for the Cubs as the first two games. On paper, their rotation was solid, but if you actually were to look closer you would see converted (terrible) reliever, inconsistent hothead, injury-prone and losing velocity trade acquisition, and overrated Ted Lilly. The Cubs pitching just did not give them an opportunity to win.

The Dodgers won this series due to outscoring the Cubs 20-6. The offense never quit and the pitching could have won it with even less run support. Going forward, the Dodgers are a very dangerous team.

My prediction: Dodgers in 5, Actual: Dodgers in 3
2-2