Cubs thrash Dodgers to even NLCS at two games each

By Billy Witz, New York Times News Service

Thursday, Oct. 20, 2016 | 1:02 a.m.

LOS ANGELES — Faced with a moment of truth after being shut out in back-to-back games by the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Chicago Cubs had all eyes upon them, studying how they would react.

Manager Joe Maddon professed faith in his players, promising that he would not be visiting Negative Town anytime soon.

Instead, he wanted the Cubs to forget their circumstance and stop looking for panaceas. Maddon wanted his players to think small.

And so Ben Zobrist did when he came to the plate after the Cubs had added three more hitless innings to their growing frustration.

On the first pitch he saw to begin the fourth, Zobrist dropped a bunt down the third-base line and raced to first without a throw.

That act of simplicity, after so many mighty swings and misses, turned out to be the start of something big. Another hit followed and then another, and soon there were Anthony Rizzo and Addison Russell — the most maligned hitters in the lineup — blasting home runs, sending the Cubs to a 10-2 victory on Wednesday night and leveling the National League Championship Series at two games apiece.

It was an emphatic win for the Cubs, who ensured that the series would return to Wrigley Field this weekend. Their ace, Jon Lester, will try to give them a lead to take home when he faces Kenta Maeda on Thursday night, with the Dodgers saying they will save Clayton Kershaw for Game 6 on Saturday.

The Cubs, who entered Wednesday night hitting .185 during the playoffs, had a breakout performance. Rizzo and Russell, who had a combined 3 hits in 50 playoff at-bats, picked up six hits alone on Wednesday and combined to drive in five runs — their first of the playoffs.

Meanwhile, it was the Dodgers — whose aggressiveness throughout the series had put the Cubs on their heels — who came unhinged in a variety of ways. Second baseman Chase Utley tried to bare-hand a toss from shortstop Corey Seager, and in his haste to turn a double play dropped the ball. Left fielder Andrew Toles, with a chance to throw out Zobrist at the plate, let loose with a wild throw that sailed past catcher Yasmani Grandal. Two runs scored on Javier Baez’s sacrifice fly when Grandal couldn’t corral a throw from center fielder Joc Pederson.

In all, the Dodgers committed four errors.

They also looked to have been deprived of taking an early lead when a replay review failed to overturn Adrian Gonzalez being thrown out at the plate to end the second inning on an extremely close play.

The Dodgers’ unraveling began in an innocent manner. The Cubs got three runners aboard in the first three innings against Urias, a 20-year-old left-hander from Culiacán, Mexico. But they could not muster a hit, and their struggles at the plate were becoming the dominant story line of this series.

Maddon said after Tuesday’s 6-0 loss that the challenge facing his players was more mental than physical. Before the game he expounded.

“I want them to stay in the moment,” he said. “I want you to continue to work the at-bats, pitch by pitch, things to that nature — stuff you can control.”

He added: “Believe me, even major league players can mess your head up if you come at them in different directions right now at this time of the year. They don’t need that, so we’re going tried and true. Score first. Win the inning. One pitch at a time. All the psycho babble that I really believe is true.”

Nobody with the Cubs understands Maddon’s messages and manners more than Zobrist, who played under him for nine seasons with the Tampa Bay Rays.

So, even though he was hitting cleanup, Zobrist thought nothing of dropping down a bunt that third baseman Justin Turner could not make a play on. Up next were two of the Cubs’ few hot hitters: Javier Baez and Willson Contreras.

Baez stayed back on a two-strike curveball and laced it to left field. Contreras, in an 0-2 hole, followed with another single to shallow left field. Although Toles gathered the ball as Zobrist was reaching third, the third-base coach Gary Jones waved him home.

The aggressiveness paid off when Toles’ throw sailed wide of the plate, snapping a 21-inning scoreless streak and giving the large contingent of Cubs fans down the right-field line something to cheer about. Jason Heyward took another small bite, pulling a two-strike pitch to the right side to score Baez and earn Heyward hugs and hand slaps in the dugout. Russell made the score 4-0 when he drove a 2-0 pitch from Urias over the center-field wall.

Rizzo led off the next inning by hitting a 3-2 pitch from reliever Pedro Baez over the center-field wall — yet another delivery on a two-strike pitch. That built the Cubs’ lead to 5-0.

The Cubs did encounter one anxious moment. After John Lackey walked two batters to open the bottom of the fifth, he was replaced by left-hander Mike Montgomery, who gave up a single to pinch-hitter Howie Kendrick that loaded the bases. But Montgomery struck out Corey Seager and appeared on the verge of escaping when Turner bounced the ball back to him, setting the stage for an almost certain double play. But the ball ticked off Montgomery’s glove and toward the shortstop spot that Russell had vacated to cover second, scoring two runs.

But Montgomery retired Gonzalez and pinch-hitter Kike Hernandez on groundouts, and the Cubs’ lead remained 5-2.

The game did not remain tight for long. The Cubs continued to bleed the Dodgers. In the sixth, two infield singles, a walk, a hit by Montgomery, two more singles and a sacrifice fly ballooned the Chicago lead to 10-2.