CHICAGO – That didn’t take long.
The Cubs’ status as the NL’s team to beat this October lasted only enough time for Joe Torre’s Dodgers to swoop into chilly Wrigley Field and apply a 7-2 whipping in Game 1 of the Division Series.
Chicago is in full here-we-go-again mode after the Dodgers blasted three homers last night – including a fifth-inning grand slam by James Loney that essentially decided the game – to send the Cubs to their seventh consecutive postseason loss.
The lopsided defeat is even more ominous for Lou Piniella and the Cubs than the Billy Goat Curse. That’s because a whopping 23 of the 26 best-of-five series in NLDS history have eventually gone to the Game 1 winner. It also was just the second playoff win by the Dodgers since Kirk Gibson led them to that dramatic World Series crown 20 years ago.
“We can’t get too happy or glad, because it’s only one game,” said Manny Ramirez, who added a solo homer in the seventh. “But this feels good.”
The Cubs came in with the league’s most potent offense, but it was Torre’s club that had balls ricocheting around Wrigley when it wasn’t being walked by feckless Chicago starter Ryan Dempster or the bullpen. The Cubs walked eight overall, including the pitcher twice.
“Invariably, when you keep putting people on, they’re going to score,” Piniella said. “That’s just how it goes.”
Dempster was 14-3 at home in the regular season but looked like the erratic Dempster of old last night, tying his career high set in 1999 with seven walks while lasting just 42/3 innings.
“I felt great, but I just couldn’t get it over the plate,” Dempster said. “I don’t know if I was trying to be too fine or what.”
Three of those walks came in the fifth, setting the stage for Loney’s dramatic slam into the bleachers in left-center that erased a 2-0 L.A. deficit and turned Wrigley deathly quiet. Loney’s homer came on a 1-2 pitch after he had looked badly overmatched on his first three swings.
“He’s so unpredictable,” Torre said of Loney. “We’ve seen that time and time again this year. That obviously was huge for us.”
Ramirez and Russell Martin added solo shots as the Dodgers continued the late-season surge that put ex-Yankees boss Torre into the playoffs for the 13th consecutive time in his first season as L.A.’s manager.
The Dodgers have won 20 of their past 28 games, and it’s easy to see why after they showed extreme patience at the plate and got yet another terrific outing from resurgent starter Derek Lowe.
Lowe was the best starter in the majors in August and September, going 5-1 with a 0.94 ERA in his final nine starts. The veteran right-hander was just as dominant last night, giving up just two runs on seven hits while striking out six in six innings. He was so efficient that the Dodgers hinted strongly afterward that he would start Game 4 Sunday in L.A., if necessary, on three-days’ rest.
Lowe’s only trouble came in the second, when he served up Mark DeRosa’s first career playoff homer.
That would be the last anyone would hear from the Cubs’ bats as leadoff man Alfonso Soriano and Kosuke Fukudome combined to go 0-for-9 with three strikeouts at the top of the Chicago order.
bhubbuch@nypost.com
