Cubs vs. Dodgers 2017 live results: Score updates and highlights from NLCS Game 1

The Cubs vs. the Dodgers in the NLCS? What is this, 2016? The Dodgers made it into the 2017 NLCS easily, while the Cubs went five games with the Nationals to make it here. Despite all that, the Dodgers aren’t necessarily the favorite: the Cubs are the defending champs who defeated the Dodgers en route to that title a year ago, and the Dodgers losing in the NLCS is something we’re pretty used to by now.

At 8:08 p.m. ET, we’ll be live blogging Game 1 of the NLCS. That’s right! We’re not just live blogging elimination games now.

As usual, if you want to read the live blog from the beginning, scroll down to the “1st inning” header and work your way back up.

Anthony Rizzo, Willson Contreras, and Ian Happ are due up this inning for the Cubs against Kenley Jansen. If one of them should reach, Addison Russell is next in line. Oddly enough, because of an earlier double switch, the one Cub who drove in runs (Almora) is out, and Happ is now in his spot.

Jansen strikes Rizzo out on a breaking ball that just kept on breaking — Rizzo even got down on one knee to try to get a piece of it. The Cubs are down to their last two outs.

Contreras whiffs, and once again it’s not close. I don’t know if you’re aware, but Kenley Jansen is good at pitching. The Cubs are down to their final out of Game 1, still down by three runs.

I was writing a joke about Joe Maddon sitting in the clubhouse in street clothes pouring a glass of wine, but then Happ also struck out and the game ended before I could finish that. The Dodgers take Game 1, 5-2, and we’ll be back on Sunday for Game 2.

Tony Watson is now in the game — the Dodgers also picked him up at the trade deadline to bolster their bullpen. Watson picks up two quick groundouts on just four pitches, and now closer Kenley Jansen is here for the final four outs of the night.

Jansen posted a 1.32 ERA, which incredibly was half-a-run lower than last year’s already sub-two mark. He struck out a career-high 14.4 batters per nine, and posted an absurd K/BB of 15.6 -- Jansen walked just seven batters all season in 68-1/3 innings of work.

He’ll start his outing off against Kris Bryant, so his work won’t be easy here. Jansen does get Bryant swinging, but next inning, he still has Rizzo, Contreras, and now Happ coming to bat.

Lackey is still in, which is no surprise, since the idea is to avoid using other relievers while down by three runs late. He gets Logan Forsythe to strike out on five pitches, and then walks Austin Barnes to bring up Puig. No bat flip or lengthy stare from Puig this time, however, as Lackey gets out of the inning.

Maeda gets the last right-hander in a row that he was supposed to, and now Brandon Morrow will enter the game to face Kyle Schwarber. Then it’s Baez and what used to be the pitcher’s spot, but is now Ben Zobrist.

Morrow gets Schwarber to fly out, and then strikes out Baez on an unchecked swing, and now it’s time for the seventh inning stretch. Which honestly sounds like a good idea, I’ve been sitting here for a while now.

Yasiel Puig is here, fresh off of making Keith Olbermann super mad on the internet. Yasiel, buddy, I already think you’re amazing, you didn’t need to go that extra mile just for me.

Speaking of the extra mile, Puig just hit a homer that carried and carried, and it’s now 4-2 Dodgers. Culberson follows up with a double, so, to this point, the Dodgers don’t miss Corey Seager’s bat. Any game where that proves to be true is a bonus for Los Angeles.

Brandon Morrow hits for himself, and laid a bunt down the third base line. Culberson didn’t move to third, though, as the Cubs played it well enough that Culberson didn’t have a clear opening to head there.

Here’s the top of the order and Taylor, who homered earlier to give the Dodgers their first lead of the game. Taylor grounds it deep to short, deep enough to be safe at first, and Culberson... still didn’t run to third. He’s made a nice home for himself there.

John Lackey has been warming up, and now he’s coming into the baseball game. Overall, Lackey’s year wasn’t bad: right around the league-average, really. That was due to a much stronger second half in which he posted a 3.75 ERA and cut 100 points off of his opponents’ slugging percentage.

Ian Happ is now in the game, playing second base, as Lackey took Baez’s spot in the lineup in this double switch.

Turner laces a ball into left field, and Schwarber throws a one-hopper to get Culberson at the plate. Contreras blocked the plate with his leg, keeping Culberson from getting a hand in to tag it — he was blocking it before he had the ball, too, so this one is going to review and has a great chance of being overturned.

It is indeed overturned, and Joe Maddon got ejected for arguing it, since you’re not allowed to argue the result of a challenge. Ron Darling has been complaining about this for like five minutes, though, and I would love it if someone would eject him from the announce booth.

It’s second and third, 5-2 Dodgers, two outs, and Curtis Granderson is now batting for Hernandez. The inning ends with a groundout, and we’re on to the eighth.

Of course, we could also see Kershaw’s replacements blow it in the sixth and then the second-guessing will only get louder, but given everything we’ve discussed to this point, it’s not like Clayton would have been immune to the possibility, either.

Here’s Cingrani, who the Dodgers picked up at the deadline from the Reds, to face Rizzo. He does his job and exits the game before I can tell you anything about him beyond that, but I’m sure he’ll pitch again on a night I’ve got the Dodgers-Cubs beat.

Kenta Maeda, who had been warming fairly early in Kershaw’s start, now enters the game. Maeda wasn’t as good of a starter as he was for the Dodgers in his rookie campaign a year ago, but he was still a league-average arm and he’s capable of missing plenty of bats.

Maybe most important is that Maeda is death on righties: they’ve hit .214/.257/.351 against him in 657 career plate appearances. Important here, because the Cubs have Contreras, Almora, and Russell in a row here, before the lefty Schwarber breaks things up temporarily until the right-handed Baez is up.

Maeda retires Contreras and Almora, and the post-Kershaw brigade is off to a good, scoreless start.

Chris Taylor, former Mariners kinda-sorta-prospect, sent to the Dodgers in a challenge trade in exchange for former prospect Zach Lee, hits a homer off of Hector Rondon, and now it’s 3-2, Dodgers.

Turner makes an out, but that’s all for Rondon, as Maddon makes a double switch. Mike Montgomery takes Almora’s spot in the lineup, while Ben Zobrist takes Rondon’s spot. Jon Jay moves to center, Zobrist to right, and here’s Cody Bellinger at the plate.

All of those moves haven’t done much for the Cubs as of yet. Bellinger singled, and Montgomery went to 3-0 on Hernandez before a foul ball finally got him a strike.

Montgomery gets Hernandez to fly out, and without advancing Bellinger, too. Bellinger takes things into his own hands, however, and steals second: there’s a video review, but if he was out, it’s going to be tough to argue, so chances are good the call will remain safe.

Baez did tag Bellinger, and it was almost at the exact same fraction of a second that Bellinger got the bag. Good slide, good tag, but the former seems like it beat the latter. The umps confirm as much.

Forsythe walks, but Austin Barnes can’t keep it going, and that’s the sixth. Still 3-2, Dodgers.

Kershaw gets a quick — and necessary — out of Quintana, but then gets locked into a lengthy at-bat against leadoff hitter Jon Jay. He eventually grounds out, but not until he squeezes nine more pitches out of the Dodgers’ ace.

Bryant at least made it easy for the lefty, flying out on the second pitch, so Kershaw is now through five innings, but also already 87 pitches in. Kenta Maeda is now warming in the Los Angeles’ bullpen, so Dave Roberts is well aware that even if Kershaw isn’t laboring, he only has so many pitches left in him in Game 1.

Enrique Hernandez leads off the bottom of the fifth for the Dodgers against Quintana, who has still only thrown 63 pitches — if he keeps it up a little longer, the Cubs might be able to go directly to their closer. Or, at least, get pretty close to that scenario.

Hernandez did his part to change that with a seven-pitch at-bat, but he’s just one man. Logan Forsythe must have heard me, because he drew a walk, and suddenly Quintana is at 74 pitches with Austin Barnes at a 1-1 count. Forsythe, by the way, snapped Quintana’s stretch of eight batters retired in a row.

Barnes followed that walk with one of his own, and now Cubs’ pitching coach Chris Bosio is coming out to the mound with Yasiel Puig stepping to the plate.

Quintana cannot throw strikes, but Contreras was at least able to block the second one and keep the baserunners from advancing. Hector Rondon, freshly on the postseason roster with the removal of Justin Wilson, is now warming in the Cubs’ pen.

Puig crushes a double to the wall in left-center, and the Cubs’ lead has been cut in half. There are now runners at second and third, and still just the one out. Now it’s Charlie Culberson’s turn.

Oh, here’s a fun Culberson fact now that I have time to type one: he hit an NL West-winning walkoff homer in Vin Scully’s final regular season game. He doesn’t get the same thing here, but he did hit a sac fly just now, and it’s suddenly a tie game, 2-2.

Clayton Kershaw’s night is over, as the Dodgers got to his spot in the lineup and decided to pull him for pinch-hitter Kyle Farmer with a runner still on second. Tony Cingrani is warming in the pen, most likely preparing to face Anthony Rizzo in the top of the sixth.

Farmer grounds out, so the switch doesn’t pay off, but don’t let Ron Darling fool you: Kershaw isn’t pitching like that Kershaw, and he was already at 87 pitches with the heart of the order coming up once more. The idea was right, even if Farmer didn’t deliver.

Kershaw has been good so far, but he’s also already thrown 53 pitches through three-plus innings. One wonders how long he’ll last before Dave Roberts looks to the Dodgers’ bullpen. Pitch 53, by the way, was a single for Willson Contreras.

Kershaw hasn’t looked like the best version of himself tonight, to the point Norm McDonald basically called this homer by Almora:

2-0, Cubs.

Kershaw recovered well enough, retiring Russell and Schwarber and Baez, but efficient outs aren’t going to erase that dinger. The Dodgers will have to score some runs off Quintana soon.

Quintana faces the top of the order again here, and nearly starts off the inning with a dinger. Taylor sends Almora to the warning track, but Dodger Stadium contains the shot. One out.

Quintana’s pitch count is still relatively low — he’s at 55 through 3-2/3 — but it just shot up thanks to Justin Turner’s nine-pitch at-bat. It ended in an out, so a win is a win is a win and all that, but it certainly took Quintana off the pace he was on. Cody Bellinger goes down, too, and Quintana has still only faced the minimum thanks to a double play that erased the one hit he did allow.

lol of course, the pitcher who has been in the NL for a few months picks up a hit against Kershaw. Quintana is on first, and the top of the Cubs’ lineup is back up. Jay bunts Quintana to second, which seems an odd decision in the third inning when you have no outs and Kris Bryant is up next. But hey, if Joe Maddon wants to burn outs unnecessarily in a high-offense league after he was gifted a hit by his pitcher, let him.

Kershaw then gets Bryan to fly out to left and Anthony Rizzo to fly out to right, so it probably would have been cool to have that extra opportunity to do something with Quintana, but instead, the Cubs will start fresh in the top of the fourth with Willson Contreras.

Here is Yasiel Puig, who earlier this evening was doing this.

That’s the best Puig action you’ll see this inning, however, as he grounded out to short, bringing up Corey Seager’s replacement, Charlie Culberson. Culberson also grounded to short, and did so before I could look up anything interesting to say about him. Oh well, next time.

That brings up Kershaw, who at least is making Quintana work unlike Culberson, who swung at the first pitch and made an out. Quintana records the out, but it took eight pitches, leaving Quintana at 43 through three frames.

Justin Turner reels in Addison Russell’s grounder to kick off the second. Apropos of nothing besides Justin Turner being in this series and making that play, let’s revisit a classic Twitter interaction between player and fan.

Kyle Schwarber grounds out, because the shift serves a purpose. And Javier Baez not only strikes out against Clayton Kershaw, but gets devastated by Ron Darling’s scouting report on him, which boiled down to, “If you get ahead of Javier Baez in the count, you can do whatever you feel like after that, because he’s screwed.”

Darling wasn’t exaggerating, either: Baez has hit .189/.198/.311 for his career in 494 plate appearances when the pitcher is ahead in the count. When Baez is ahead? .328/.454/.572 in 357 plate appearances.

Jose Quintana would like you to know he’s also very good at pitching. While it took him six pitches to retire Enrique Hernandez, he needed just four total to erase Logan Forsythe and Austin Barnes, thanks to a double play. It’s still 0-0, and we might just have ourselves our second pitchers’ duel of the day.

Well, maybe. It’s the second inning. Don’t get too excited just yet.

It’s weird that the Astros are already up two games to none over the Yankees in the ALCS and we’re just now getting to Game 1 of the NLCS, but that’s how these schedules work if we want to be able to watch both. Remember how in 2004, you had to choose Red Sox-Yankees or Astros-Cardinals because they aired concurrently? Awful.

In case you haven’t heard, Corey Seager isn’t on the Dodgers’ NLCS roster, as his back is too much of a problem to risk carrying him at all. Charlie Culberson is playing in his stead thanks to his glove.

Here’s Clayton Kershaw, who isn’t coming off of pitching on three days rest or coming in relief or any of the normals Dodgers NLDS stuff: fully rested Kershaw, set to pitch Games 1, 4, and 7 if necessary without already having short-rest starts behind him? That could be fun. Unless you’re a Cubs’ fan, anyway.

Jon Jay bats first for the Cubs, and strikes out on three pitches. If only all of the live blog were so simple! Alas, Kris Bryant got a hit, because he doesn’t want my Saturday night to be easy. I won’t forget this.

Anthony Rizzo follows with a walk, battling back from down 1-2, and now Willson Contreras is up with a pair of runners on and just the one out. He strikes out on a very Kershaw curveball — his hammer is so, so great. Now, Albert Almora Jr. tries to keep the Cubs from wasting the two baserunners. He failed in this task, grounding into a force out that ended the inning instead.

Here comes Jose Quintana, who you might remember from such series as the NLDS against the Nationals, and also years of being underappreciated while toiling away for the White Sox. He’ll face Chris Taylor, Justin Turner, and Cody Bellinger at minimum in the bottom of the first.

Quintana doesn’t look like he’s tired from pitching in Game 5 of the NLDS, as he gets Taylor and Turner out, and then recovers from falling behind 3-0 on Bellinger to even up the count and then punch him out, too. On to the second!