Dodgers clout Cubs again 6-1 to push defending champs to brink

The Cubs returned to the nostalgia, good vibes and friendly confines of Wrigley Field, trying desperately Tuesday night to recreate the good old days of Cub baseball.

You know, last year about this time.

Good luck even remembering that, even with the same Dodgers in Chicago for the same National League Championship round of the playoffs.

Because if the Cubs have discovered nothing else this October, it’s that this looks nothing like last year. And in particular, these look nothing like last year’s Dodgers.

By the time the 104-win Dodgers were done throttling the Cubs 6-1 in Game 3 to put them in a 3-0 hole in the best-of-seven series Tuesday night, all that seemed to remain were the final numbers.

“We’ve got nothing to lose,” said Kris Bryant, who had two of the Cubs’ eight hits on this night. “Only one team’s done it. We’re going to go out there and play with our heads on fire and have some fun with it. And when we’re playing like that, that’s when we’re at our best. Hopefully, we’re all going crazy after winning a game tomorrow.”

A year after outpitching and outhitting the Dodgers to eliminate them in six games on the way to a first World Series in 71 years, the Cubs have had little go their way – some of the struggles tracing back to their first-round series against the Nationals.

A few of the numbers:

The 23 walks they’ve issued in eight postseason games is a record for that number of games;
They’ve committed nine errors in eight games, including two more Tuesday;
That has led to five unearned runs, including one Tuesday;
And until Alex Avila and Albert Almora Jr. led off the ninth with back-to-back hits Tuesday, the Cubs were 0-for-29 in the series against the Dodgers bullpen. It’s now 2-for-34 with a hit batter Sunday and a walk in Tuesday’s eighth – after Kenley Jansen stranded Avila and Almora in scoring position to end the game.

And that doesn’t even count what might be the only sequence of this postseason stranger than the fifth inning of Game 5 in Washington:

The Cubs trailed 3-1 in the sixth Tuesday night when the Dodgers loaded the bases with two out and the pitcher’s spot due up against reliever Carl Edwards Jr.

Left-handed hitting Curtis Granderson was on deck, and was even mistakenly announced in the press box as a pinch-hitter just as Dodger manager Dave Roberts called him back to the dugout to leave Darvish to hit for himself.

Darvish, as in the American League pitcher traded to the Dodgers from the Rangers at the July 31 deadline.

Showing bunt, Darvish walked on four pitches.

<em>Fan at Tuesday’s game.</em> — *Fan at Tuesday’s game.*

Edwards then struck out leadoff hitter Chris Taylor – already a proven Cubs killer in the series – on three pitches to end the inning, eliciting a chorus of boos as he walked off the field.

“It’s called making pitches,” Edwards said. “And I didn’t.”

That about summed up the kind of series it’s been for the Cubs, who face a 3-0 deficit that has been overcome in a best-of-seven postseason series only once in major league history.

“We’re not out there to lose,” shortstop Addison Russell said. “Just go out there and play our hearts out. At this point in the season, put everything on the table.”

That comeback success was pulled off by Theo Epstein’s 2004 Red Sox, who beat the Yankees in a four-game comeback that famously started with a ninth-inning stolen base by a pinch-runner named Dave Roberts – exactly 13 years ago Tuesday.

“Listen, our guys, we wear it on our wristbands: `We never quit,’ “ Cubs manager Joe Maddon said. “It’s not easy. It’s been done before. Theo saw it.

Kyle Schwarber’s first-inning homer gave the Cubs a brief lead.

“A lot of it’s contingent upon Jake [Arrieta] being able to go deep into the game.”

Arrieta, the Cubs’ former Cy Young Award winner who could be making his final start as a Cub, starts Game 4 on Wednesday trying to keep the Cubs alive.

“He’s a big-game pitcher, and tomorrow we need him,” Anthony Rizzo said.

“He’s been in those games before and shut the door,” Cubs veteran Ben Zobrist said. “We trust in all our pitching, but he’s a stud on the mound.”

Said Russell: “I’d play on this team, the Cubs, every single day of my life if I could. But tomorrow we’ve got to win.”

Follow me on Twitter @GDubCub

Email: gwittenmyer@suntimes.com