Dodgers go up 2-0 on Cubs
Published 1:44 am Friday, October 3, 2008
After two duds by the Cubs at Wrigley Field, Manny Ramirez and the Los Angeles Dodgers look ready to run Chicago’s championship drought to 100 years.
Ramirez hit a mammoth homer to extend his postseason record, Russell Martin had a three-run double and the Dodgers took advantage of four errors by the clumsy Cubs in a 10-3 victory Thursday night that gave them a 2-0 lead in the NL division series.
The Cubs became the 23rd major league team to lose the first two games at home in a best-of-five playoff series, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. Only one has come back to win — the 2001 New York Yankees against Oakland.
Of course, that Yankees team was managed by Joe Torre, now in the Dodgers’ dugout.
The series switches to Dodger Stadium for Game 3 on Saturday night. Rich Harden will face Los Angeles’ Hiroki Kuroda, who pitched a four-hit shutout against the Cubs in Los Angeles on June 6.
Chad Billingsley shut down Chicago’s slumping lineup and Ramirez’s 26th postseason home run landed on the roof of the batter’s eye club in center, at least 450 feet away. It was his second jaw-dropping shot in two nights.