CHICAGO — Manny Ramirez and Joe Torre brought their winning postseason ways to the Los Angeles Dodgers — and Wrigley Field.
James Loney hit a go-ahead grand slam off a wild Ryan Dempster, Ramirez and Russell Martin homered and the new-look Dodgers beat the Chicago Cubs 7-2 in their NL playoff opener Wednesday.
The Cubs entered the postseason with the best record in the NL, hoping for a fast start 100 years after their last World Series championship.
But Ramirez and Torre, winners of six World Series crowns in the AL, wound up on top in their first playoff game together. Ramirez’s homer was his 25th in the postseason, extending his record.
“I’m just being Manny,” Ramirez said. “That’s it. I’ve been playing great everywhere, and I’m just happy that I’m here in L.A. It was a great move for me, just to go and show people that other stuff that I left behind wasn’t true, that I just want to come and get a new life and play the game . . . and show people that I still can do this.”
It was a good omen for the Dodgers. The last time they started a postseason series with a victory was 1988 — the Kirk Gibson game in the World Series.
Torre made his 13th straight postseason managerial appearance — the previous 12 were with the New York Yankees — and extended his record for postseason wins to 77.
The Cubs took a 2-0 lead on Mark DeRosa’s homer in the second inning off Derek Lowe, but the Dodgers rebounded against Dempster, who had trouble finding the strike zone.
Dempster walked the bases loaded in the fifth, and Loney delivered for the Dodgers.
After swinging and missing at the first two pitches, he sent a 1-2 pitch over the wall in center for the grand slam that gave the Dodgers a 4-2 lead and silenced a Wrigley Field crowd that was cheering loudly for Dempster to get out of the jam he created.
“Invariably, when you keep putting people on, they’re going to score, and they scored there quickly with that grand slam,” Piniella said.
When Matt Kemp followed with a double, Piniella had seen enough and brought in Sean Marshall from the bullpen. Marshall gave up Ramirez’s solo shot in the seventh that made it 5-2.
The Dodgers padded the lead in the eighth when Blake DeWitt doubled and reached third on an error by Cubs center fielder Jim Edmonds, scoring on Casey Blake’s single off Jeff Samardzija.
Martin homered off Jason Marquis in the top of the ninth.
Dodgers lead 1-0
Game 1 Wednesday @ Chicago
Los Angeles 7, Chicago 2
Game 2 Today, 7:37 p.m. @ Chicago Dodgers’ C. Billingsley 16-10, 3.14 Cubs’ Carlos Zambrano 14-6, 3.91
Game 3 Sat., 8:07 p.m. @ L.A. Cubs’ Rich Harden 10-2, 2.07 Dodgers’ Hiroki Kuroda 9-10, 3.73
Game 4 Sunday, if nec. @ L.A. Cubs’ Ted Lilly 17-9, 4.09 Dodgers’ Greg Maddux 8-13, 4.22
Game 5 Tuesday, if nec. @ Chi. Dodgers’ Derek Lowe 1-0, 3.00* Cubs’ Ryan Dempster 0-1, 7.71*
*NLDS
