Spirit’s Willing, but They’re Just Not Able

It was a routine single, by a trailing team, leading off the second inning, let it drop, no big ...

Skidddd!

Here came Milton Bradley, riding to an unnecessary rescue on a misguided horse.

He dived, but landed about three feet short.

He stuck out his glove, but it was pointed palm down.

The ball bounced cleanly in front of him, then past him, rolling toward the Mississippi River while Edgar Renteria sprinted to second base.

Thus was created both a rally and a metaphor for an unseasonably warm and unusually messy Dodger Thursday night.

They valiantly tried to be Charles Bronson.

They ended up looking like Charlie Brown.

Down to their last two acts, they stormed across this unfamiliar postseason stage with all the bluster they could muster.

The St. Louis Cardinals shrugged, stepped aside and watched them run right into the orchestra pit.

The winner and final score in this second division series game were identical to the first one, Cardinals, 8-3, and now the Dodgers’ backs are wallpaper.

To still be wearing a uniform in five days, they must win three consecutive games against the team with the best record in baseball.

Their first chance would be Saturday, when a guy who threw a two-hitter in his last start against the Dodgers -- Matt Morris -- faces a Dodger pitcher with a fractured thumb on his pitching hand.

All at once now, Dodger fans, in hopeful voices ... it’s Lima Time?

Or winter time.

“I don’t know how,” said Eric Gagne, “but we have to find a way.”

The Dodger crown jewel finally made his first career postseason appearance in the eighth inning but by that time, well, it was game over.

The Dodgers had taken a 1-0 lead but lost it during an inning when they simply tried too hard.

They then tied it up at 3-3, but couldn’t blow open the game because they were trying too hard again.

They lost the game an inning later by allowing three Cardinal runs because, you guessed it, they squeezed the ball a little too tight.

On a day they desperately tried to be something they aren’t, the Dodgers ended up looking like someone we’ve never seen.

“They’re a good team, they know the game,” Gagne said of the Cardinals. “But we could have won this one.”

The reason they didn’t?

The Cardinals are simply smarter, cooler and clearly more comfortable as a team.

Some of it is playoff experience. Some of it is simply clubhouse experience.

The young and still molding Dodgers are playing as if they will be a good postseason team one day. But that day might not be this season.

Second inning, after Bradley’s great-but-failed effort at catching the fly ball by Renteria, Reggie Sanders laid down a surprise bunt.

Second baseman Alex Cora fielded the ball but threw in the dirt at first base.

One out later, with runners on first and third and pitcher Jason Marquis batting, starter Jeff Weaver inexplicably became intent on holding Sanders at first base.

He eventually made a pickoff throw that Shawn Green couldn’t catch, the ball squirting out of his glove while one run scored.

Said Weaver: “I thought it was a good throw.”

Said Green: “I tried to reach around the runner’s body, and it went off my glove.”

Said the Cardinals: “Thank you.”

Two typical Cardinal two-out hits later, it was 3-1.

“We’re close,” said Weaver. “They just do some of those little things they’ve been doing all year.”

Two innings later, in the fourth, after consecutive solo home runs by Green and Bradley had tied the score again, the Dodgers had the bases loaded and two out and a 3-and-0 count on Steve Finley and ...

“He can’t hit a grand slam every time,” Green said later.

Cal Eldred, who had danced on the corners for eight balls in his last nine pitches, came right after last weekend’s Dodger hero.

Fastball down the middle for a called strike.

Fastball inside, swing and miss, strike two.

“Then he threw something outside for the first time, another really good pitch,” said Finley.

Finley swung at it, hit it, but just missed hitting it. The ball soared gently to center field for the third out, the Busch Stadium crowd roaring, the game still tied.

Said Finley: “I was right there. It was inches. Just missed it.”

Said Larry Walker: “That would have broken it wide open right there.”

Which meant, of course, that the Cardinals would break things open, as they did an inning later by scoring three runs after Weaver hit two batters and was beaten by Renteria on a 2-and-0 RBI single and by Mike Matheny on a first-pitch single.

Both with two outs, of course.

So far this series, the Cardinals have scored 13 runs with two outs, while the Dodgers have scored three.

The Cardinals have played near-perfect defense, while the Dodgers have made two errors that could have been more.

Even where the Dodgers have been at their best, it has not been enough.

They have worked the Cardinal pitchers into deep counts in the first two games of the series, forcing their starters to throw 205 pitches in 9 1/3 combined innings.

As a result of this, they have drawn nine walks in the series.

But how many of those walks have scored?

Zero.

Which also happens to be the Dodgers’ chance of winning this series if they don’t remember who they are, and how they got here, and quick.

Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Plaschke, go to latimes.com/plaschke.