They're not 5 outs away from the World Series, and there has been no Steve Bartmann to lay the blame on for their own failings, but this so reminds me of the 2003 collapse. Was that Alex Gonzalez out there, or was it Mark DeRosa? Was that Leon Durham at first base, or was it Derrick Lee? ((Okay, that's a reference to the 1984 collapse.) I couldn't quite tell anymore.

Everyone was saying that this was the best Cubs team they could ever remember seeing. I didn't really see it, and I wasn't getting over the top excited during the regular season. Going into the season I thought they needed another starting pitcher. Not another of the Jason Marquis mold, but one of the Johan Santana mold - a top of the rotation talent.

When they got a guy with that sort of talent in Rich Harden, I started to buy in. I can't remember a team with 4 better starters than Zambrano, Dempster (the way he performed in the regular season, that is), Lilly and now Harden. I thought, this is a rotation built to go deep into the playoffs where pitching and defense are key.

Well, pitching let us fans down in game 1, with a poor performance from Dempster. And though I felt Zambrano pitched quite well last night, it was a usually stellar defense that let us down, leading to a five run second when Big Z should have gotten out of it un-scored upon. Grrr.

But you can't win a game if you can't score any runs. The score in these two games so far is Dodgers 17, Cubs 5. And 3 of those runs were in "garbage time", more or less, when the game was out of reach. Their hitters, to a man, look overmatched. I watched the Dodgers' hitters stroke balls for hard hit grounders and line drives, with beautiful swings, and I watched the Cubs' hitters fish for balls low and outside. Soriano is especially bad, but Lee hasn't been a ton better. At least Jim Edmunds makes contact. And DeRosa tries - he's the one guy who seems to be stroking the ball (though not early in last night's game).

They look tighter than an overwound wrist watch. I don't believe in curses, but this team looks like they believe it. Or, more accurately, they look like they feel the weight of one hundred years of postseason futility on them. No matter WHAT they say, they have to feel it. It's all around them. It's in the fans, in the media, in that park. We ALL feel it.

I went to bed after the fourth inning last night. Score was 6-0. I told myself, I'll watch this inning, see if the Cubs do anything that makes it look like they might come back. Because the deeper they get into this game, the less likely it is that they'll score enough runs to overcome the deficit. 6-3 looks a whole lot better and less intimidating than 6-0. But they went down, if not 1-2-3, it was still without much of a bang. No hard hit balls. No good swings. No good batting eyes, making the pitcher work much on any hitter. A patient team in the regular season (at the plate) has become a team seeing far fewer pitches per at bat (or so it looks to me) than they need to do in the playoffs.

I woke up at 1 am, and couldn't stop wondering what had happened. Finally, after almost an hour of trying to get back to sleep without any success, I went down to the computer, trying not to wake anyone (including the dog). Final score - 10-3. Ouch.

I am not going to watch any more this year, unless by some miracle, they get past the Dodgers and into round two. Then I'll start believing again. But otherwise, I'm already thinking about what I'd do in the offseason (were I GM) to change this club. As if it will matter.