Ryan Dempster and his fellow starters posted a combined 1.61 earned-run average on the West Coast swing to San Diego and Los Angeles, doing their jobs while the offense failed to do its.
So the Cubs wound up with a 2-5 record on the trip after a 3-1 victory over the Dodgers on Sunday and limped home seven games behind the Rockies in the wild-card race and eight behind the Cardinals in the NL Central.
If the Cubs don’t make it to the postseason, no one can blame the rotation.
“Every start we’ve had has been a quality start,” manager Lou Piniella said. “And we end up 2-5 on the road trip. Hopefully at home we’ll swing the bats better.”
Dempster threw seven innings of three-hit ball, allowing one unearned run, while Jake Fox homered, drove in a pair of runs and had a career-high four hits to raise his average to .305.
Carlos Zambrano returns to the Cubs on Tuesday against the Nationals to make his first start since Aug. 1, when he left a game in Florida after three innings with back pain.
It looks as though Zambrano, Dempster, Ted Lilly, Rich Harden and Randy Wells are going to have to carry the team the rest of the season if the Cubs hope to make the postseason for the third straight year.
“There’s no doubt about it, we’re going to lean heavily on our starting pitching to take us deep into ballgames,” catcher Koyie Hill said. “And at that point we’re going to lean on our bullpen. It might be one of those situations where we’re going to have to win games 3-2. But if that’s the way we do it, that’s the way we do it.
“I wouldn’t say we’re putting a lot of pressure on them because they’re very capable of doing it and have been doing it all year. [Unless] we break out of our shell in September and start walloping the ball all over the place, then that’s how we’re going to have to do it. I think we’re up to the task. We’ve got a lot of strong-minded guys on the starting staff and in the bullpen.”
Dempster evened his record at 7-7, with help from John Grabow and Carlos Marmol, who posted his fifth save with a perfect ninth and first since becoming the regular closer.
“Obviously, our road trip didn’t go how we would’ve liked,” Dempster said. “It would’ve been nice if it went the other way and we had a little better numbers. But we’ve got to just keep playing hard and plugging away.”
The Cubs play 22 of their next 23 games against sub-.500 teams, with the exception being the White Sox on Sept. 3 at Wrigley Field.
It’s now or never for this club.
“We’ve had some tough losses as a team,” Harden said. “But the starting pitchers we’ve got here … and Zambrano is going to come back great, I’m sure … a few good outings and a couple of runs, and we can go on a run. This team is capable of that.
“I’m sure some people have probably written us off, but a lot of people did earlier in the year too.
“We’ve got a lot of baseball left.”
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psullivan@tribune.com
