Manny Ramirez and the Los Angeles Dodgers shoved Chicago into another long winter Saturday night, completing a three-game sweep of their first-round National League playoff series with a 3-1 victory.
The Cubs’ latest flameout has to be among the most galling, considering they fell flat against the Dodgers after their best regular season since 1945.
James Loney hit a two-out, two-run double in the first inning to get Los Angeles started, and Hiroki Kuroda worked 6 1/3 brilliant innings in the first postseason outing of his career.
“Man, right now this is the place to be,” said Ramirez, who helped lead the Boston Red Sox to World Series titles in 2004 and last year. “We’re going to the second round.”
The three wins boosted first-year manager Joe Torre’s postseason total to 79 - the most in baseball history. His first 76 came in the last 12 years as skipper of the New York Yankees, including 16 in four World Series triumphs.
After earning their first postseason series win in 20 years, the Dodgers will face the Philadelphia Phillies or the Milwaukee Brewers in the best-of-seven NL Championship Series starting Thursday - at Philadelphia if the Phillies win, at Dodger Stadium if the Brewers prevail.
And the Cubs head home without having come close to their first World Series triumph since 1908. They have lost nine straight playoff games, including three to the Arizona Diamondbacks in the first round last year.
While the Cubs clinched the NL Central on Sept. 20 and won a league-high 97 games, the Dodgers had a losing record as recently as early September before turning things around behind Ramirez. They went 84-78 and won the NL West, baseball’s weakest division.
Make no mistake - the Dodgers dominated this series, outscoring Chicago 20-6 thanks in part to a lot of help from the bumbling Cubs. Cursed or not, they were outplayed in every way, committing six errors and doing a woeful job of hitting with runners in scoring position.
The Dodgers, meanwhile, entered having won only one postseason game since beating the Oakland Athletics in the 1988 World Series. They tripled that output against the Cubs, who became the first team to finish with NL’s best regular-season record and be swept in the first round of the playoffs since the Houston Astros in 2001.
Ramirez, who hit .396 with 17 home runs and 53 RBI in 53 games after joining the Dodgers, went 1-for-2 and scored a run, giving him five hits in 10 at-bats with two homers, five runs scored and three RBI in the series. Rich Harden (0-1) walked Ramirez intentionally twice.
“I did it before, I’ll do it again,” Ramirez said. “When you’re relaxed and you’re in a place you really like, this is what happens.”
The Dodgers acquired an unhappy Ramirez from the Red Sox at the trade deadline.
The Dodgers began their locker room champagne celebration within a couple minutes after the final out, and several returned to the field shortly thereafter to share their joy with the fans. Russell Martin and Matt Kemp went into the left-field pavilion, and Kemp poured champagne into Kuroda’s mouth in front of the Los Angeles dugout as the fans cheered.
Torre spoke to the fans some 20 minutes after the game ended.
“Dodger fans, you are very special,” he said. “The way you supported us all year when we struggled, when we couldn’t get out of our own way . . . I can’t tell you how much we appreciate it. Just don’t go away, we’ll be back next week, because we still have eight more games to win.”
With that, the fans roared their approval.
Kuroda, a 33-year-old rookie who signed a $35.3 million, three-year contract with the Dodgers last winter, scattered six hits before being relieved by Cory Wade with two on and one out in the seventh.
This wasn’t Kuroda’s first outstanding performance against the Cubs - he shut them out on four hits while striking out 11 on June 6 at Dodger Stadium.
The Cubs were pretty awful in the first two games at Wrigley Field, where they were an NL-best 55-26 during the regular season. Game 1 starter Ryan Dempster matched a career high with seven walks in 4 2/3 innings in a 7-2 loss, and each of the four Chicago infielders committed errors in Game 2, leading to a 10-3 setback.
A move to Los Angeles didn’t help the Chicago offense, which scored a league-leading 855 runs this year. The Cubs had only four hits in 17 at-bats with runners in scoring position in the first two games before going 1-for-11 in Game 3.
At least the long-suffering Cubs fans weren’t around to boo them in Game 3, although the Dodger Stadium faithful made up for that.
Russell Martin hit a one-out double in the first and took third on a single by Ramirez. After Harden struck out Andre Ethier, Loney hit a liner down the right-field line, giving the Dodgers a 2-0 lead and sending the towel-waving fans into an early frenzy.
Rafael Furcal walked with one out in the fifth and scored on a double by Martin.
The Cubs got their run in the eighth off Wade on a leadoff double by Derrek Lee, who had three hits, and a two-out RBI single by Daryle Ward. Jonathan Broxton relieved and struck out Mark DeRosa to end the inning and worked a perfect ninth with two more strikeouts to earn a save.
Harden allowed five hits and three runs in 4 1/3 innings. He had gone 5-0 with a 1.99 ERA in his last 10 starts.
The Cubs put two runners aboard with two outs in both the first and third innings, but Kuroda worked out of trouble each time, retiring Geovany Soto to end the first and Aramis Ramirez to finish the third.
Soto doubled to open the fourth and took third on an infield out. But after Soto stayed at third on another groundout, the Dodgers walked Ryan Theriot intentionally before Kuroda fanned Harden.
