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Converted from a closer at the start of this season, Dempster was picked to start Game 1 of last night's National League Division Series against Los Angeles instead of Cubs ace Carlos Zambrano, or Rich Harden or lefty Ted Lilly.
He was chosen for several reasons, but calm and control were at the top. Fourteen of his 17 victories this season had come at Wrigley Field, and manager Lou Piniella liked that he had been around the block a few times, had scuffled through some hard times and some injuries to reach this point.
"He's probably superseded our expectations," Piniella said Tuesday.
OK, so he probably meant to say exceeded. Truth is, however, that's exactly what Dempster did in last night's 7-2 series-opening loss to the Dodgers. He voided the Cubs expectations of a quick start at home, set aside them as useless. He threw a big dent in his spring-training guarantee of a Cubs World Series victory, too. Dempster threw 109 pitches in just 4 2/3 innings of work, his shortest stint since a late June shellacking across town at Comiskey.
"I felt great, the same as all year," Dempster said afterward. "I felt good warming up. I just couldn't get it over the plate. Maybe I was trying to be a little too fine out there."
It's been an even 100 years since the Cubs last won a World Series, and 63 years since they emerged as the National League's top dogs. In between, they've been cursed by a goat-owning bar owner, crossed by a black cat, and sabotaged by the adult version of Jeffrey Maier.
Just to name a few.
So there was Dempster, staked to a 2-0 lead last night, thanks to Mark DeRosa's wind-blown popup over the rightfield wall, escaping a bases-loaded jam of his own making in the third inning.
Curse? What curse? Russell Martin crushed a ball to leftfield with two on in that inning, but the wind pushed the ball down into Alfonso Soriano's glove as if it were filled with pennies.
Curse? Do cursed teams get opponents to fish a foot outside for a 3-2 changeup the way that Dodgers rightfielder Andre Ethier did to end that third inning?
Do cursed teams take leads on wind-blown popups?
Piniella's had fun with the whole Cubs curse thing, but last night was as explainable as it was avoidable.
"We walked their pitcher twice," the manager squeaked. "I can't remember us doing that all summer."
After walking the bases loaded with two outs in the fifth, Dempster actually had James Loney in the hole at 1-2 when he grand-slammed a fat splitter over the leftfield wall. One double to the gap later, Dempster peered into the Cubs' dugout and Piniella walked laboriously to the mound to take him out.
"We talked about the importance of throwing strikes before the ballgame today," the manager said. "I thought that would be a big key."
It was.
Dempster had issued seven walks only twice in his career, both times in that 1999 season in which he won seven games out of 25 starts, inducing the suggestion from his pitching coach to head to Instructional League and work on another pitch.
The was current Phillies pitching coach Rich Dubee. Dubee was so proud of what Dempster had become, and what he did this season that, in analyzing Kyle Kendrick's problems as a second-year starter, he repeatedly invoked Dempster's name.
Piniella was equally proud of him, planning to throw him twice in this short series.
Now? Now the Cubs need Carlos Zambrano to keep his cool today and Rich Harden to come up big when the series shifts to Los Angeles Saturday. And they need Dempster to begin to make good on that spring-training boast, and not be added to that list with the goat, black cat, and overly exuberant fan.
"I still believe it," Dempster said.
Maybe he does. But as the Cubs fans who filed out of Wrigley last night will attest, believing isn't nearly enough. *
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