Cubbie Chaser: Excuse Me?

Ryan Dempster can, and will, talk. This we know. This the media knows, and so Dempster has become everyone's favorite bottomless comment pit.


By now, Chicago Cubs fans should have developed a gag reaction to seeing Dempster's name next to quotation marks in the newspaper or online.

Dempster had another reason to talk this week, because he just re-upped with the team he helped run into the ground last postseason. Perhaps you remember him saying something in spring training about said team making a certain championship series? (Excuse me while I perform the necessary gagging.) And perhaps you remember him walking seven Dodgers in Game 1 of the NLDS....and giving up a grand slam? (Whoa. Think I just pulled a gag muscle.)

So talk Dempster did, to Paul Sullivan of the Chicago Tribune. The story ran Tuesday. Here's what he said, in recounting the 2008 playoff collapse:

"Maybe we underestimated how prepared you have to be, how ready you have to be, especially in a five-game series. It's like a short heavyweight bout. Ding, the bell is ringing, you've got to go. ...

"It almost felt like it was just going to be a given that we win Games 1 and 2 and move on and go from there. You still have to play the games. You have to put the uniform on, go out there and compete. If anything, we've learned that."

Given? GIVEN?!?! YOU PLAY FOR THE FREAKIN' CHICAGO CUBS! NOTHING IS A GIVEN!

And how long have you been playing baseball? You didn't know you have to be prepared for games? You didn't know you can't just run out on the field and win? Did you happen to witness ANY of what happened to your own team during late August/early September? YOU WEREN'T THAT FREAKIN' GOOD!

The Ryan Dempster weight loss plan: Read quotes; lose your last meal.

This is just the latest excuse offered up by Cub types for what happened in October, but it all boils down to what I've thought all along: These guys weren't mentally tough enough to deal with the pressure of the 100-year-and-counting championship drought. Heck, they weren't even mentally tough enough to participate in the playoffs. And ultimately, players' mental toughness will determine if this drought ends in our lifetimes.

Talking about this just lowers our life expectancy. Please, Demp, have mercy.

Cubbie Chaser: The Wild Night's Appalling

Tribune Photo by Phil Velasquez

Seven walks and a grand slam.

That's pretty much all I have to say to sum up Game 1 of the National League Division Series between the Cubs and Dodgers.

I've been a huge Ryan Dempster supporter throughout the season, but he came up real darn small on Wednesday night. Watching him bounce balls in the dirt and fling balls up and out, watching Dodger after Dodger (including freakin' DEREK LOWE) trot to first base, I kept saying, "Oh, he does this. He gets in trouble, but he almost always gets out."

And that brings me to the one and only salient thing the TBS commentators said during the game. Can't remember which one, but if it was Dick Stockton, it was the one and only salient thing he's said at a baseball game in his career..."You can't keep tempting the baseball gods."

Bingo. Dempster's ill-timed wildness certainly caught up with him.

If it's ever been easy to spot big-game nerves in a player, it was easy last night. And isn't it funny how pressure can turn a veteran Major Leaguer into a high school girl, just like that? I say that because I used to pitch for my high school softball team, and of course back then you thought every game was HUGE, and when you started thinking about how big the game was, forget it. You couldn't hit the glove if it hit you first.

I can't pin that entire 7-2 loss on Dempster, although he certainly set an ominous tone. I'm sorry, but if you're supposed to be this great offense, you need to be able to push across some RUNS via something besides a homer. You need to be able to rally a little bit after the second freakin' inning.

Hopefully Lou will abandon his defense-first lineup and get Kosuke Fukudome (0-for-4) the hell out of there. Give us some Mike Fontenot, Reed Johnson. Give us somebody who doesn't look lost at the plate.

I'm not giving up. Of course I'm not. It's only one game, and we've got Carlos Zambrano on the mound tonight. He pitched a no-hitter this year.

(Cue nervous, forced laughter.)