The Cubs had losing streaks of three of more games eight times during the regular season. They happened to choose a bad time for their ninth of the year. Everyone has something to say:

Daily Herald's Bruce Miles: "The Cubs were just good enough this year to win the National League Central, but they weren't good enough to dominate or win a postseason series."

And more Miles: "I do know this: the Cubs better find some hitters who know the meaning of on-base percentage. They also could use some pop from their outfielders. GM Jim Hendry is going to have to be creative this winter. We'll see how long a budget leash he has."

Daily Herald's Tim Sassone: "Call them the Cubs' big three, but they came up a big zero in the first-round sweep at the hands of the Arizona Diamondbacks. . . . Ramirez was 0-for-12 with no RBI and 5 strikeouts; Soriano batted .143 (2-for-14) with no RBI and 4 strikeouts; Lee hit .333, but drove in no runs and struck out four times. . . . The Cubs . . . were 2-for-23 in the series with runners in scoring position."

BP's Nate Silver: "One research finding that I'm probably not going to get to document in detail this year is that the critical threshold with respect to the "playoff bonus" - the longish-term boost that a team gets to its attendance and TV revenues as a result of reaching the playoffs - seems to be in between the LDS and the LCS. That is, it's reaching the LCS round when under most circumstances a team's season goes from being ordinary to "special". If the Cubs cannot manage to come back in the 9th, I think this season gets labeled more a failure than a success."

BP's Joe Sheehan: "We talk about this every October: clutch isn't a skill, players and teams don't show the ability to time their actions, so we evaluate them without regard to timing. However, at the game level, timing is very important, and having a .500 OBP for five innings means nothing if you don't have some of those guys cross home plate. The Cubs had lousy timing in this series, and combined with the two poor starts and the Diamondbacks' power and bullpen, they lost in three."

ESPN.com's Gene Wojciechowski: "The reasons for the frustration were obvious. The Cubs supposedly had the better pitching, the better hitting, the better managing and the better experience. The problem is, the Diamondbacks had the better timing. Arizona hit and held tight when it mattered most. In fact, it isn't very complicated. The Diamondbacks simply outplayed the Cubs in almost every way imaginable. To pretend otherwise is silly."

1060west: "I really believe that turning Cub fandom into a cult-like religion is ruining the experience for many of us."

Bleed Cubbie Blue's Al Yellon: "We are disappointed this day, though it doesn't feel as bad as it did in 2003, because this team never got as close to the Promised Land as we were four years ago, nor was this team as talented. While the decision to remove Carlos Zambrano from game one can be, and has been, endlessly debated . . ., the Cubs didn't lose this series because of that. They lost the series because Alfonso Soriano and Aramis Ramirez went 2-for-26 with nine strikeouts, and because Ted Lilly and Rich Hill approached their starts like scared little kids instead of major leaguers, and because, as I noted above, the Cubs didn't pay attention to their scouting reports."

Another Cubs Blog: " I just think one can’t look at 2007 without examining 2006 and there’s no way for me to say that 2007 wasn’t a success. Did they reach their goal? Yes and No. I hope they aren’t content (I’m not either). I want more just like Lou does. But the goal, in my opinion, has always been to become a consistently good team. That’s possible at this point so I’m satisfied."

The Cub Reporter's Cubnut: "These disappointments get harder to take the older I get." I can't agree. It's much easier for me now. I cried when I was 11 in 1989. I now realize that there are a lot of things more important.

Gonfalon Cubs' DeJesus Freak: "I do not believe that the Chicago Cubs will ever win a World Series in my lifetime." And yet he rightly hates the curse talk.

Chicago Tribune's Rick Morrissey: "A radio talk-show host recently referred to the Cubs as a 'national embarrassment.' No. An 85-victory team doesn't often come into the playoffs and dominate. This was a decent team finding its level. They played this way for long periods during the regular season."

Trib's Phil Rogers: "This wasn't how the Tribune Co. era was supposed to go. It had begun on Aug. 28, 1981, with leadoff man Steve Henderson's single to right field at Dodger Stadium. The television and newspaper giant was welcomed by Chicago fans, who were weary of William Wrigley's handling of a franchise he had inherited."

Chicago Sun-Times' Greg Couch: "I don't blame Piniella. He was the right manager, a master at bringing together all these odd, ill-fitted parts. The players weren't good enough. Simple. The Cubs won 66 games last year, 85 this year. But what do you expect now? Soriano to learn the value of advancing a runner? Ted Lilly to do better than the career year he just had? Ramirez and Lee to improve?"

Daily Herald's Barry Rozner: "One thing the Cubs weren't was out-managed, despite much screaming to the contrary. Rather than show his inability, what this sad series did was prove what a remarkable job Piniella did in 2007 with an extremely mediocre club that relied heavily on heavy hitters with heavy wallets."

FOXSports.com's Ken Rosenthal: "The Cubs were overrated, the Diamondbacks underrated. Looking back, it all sort of makes sense."

MSNBC.com's Bob Cook: "Whether manager Lou Piniella cares to believe it, the Chicago Cubs are cursed." What follows is a lot of nonsense having nothing to do with baseball.

Yahoo! Sports' Jeff Passan: "The final was 5-1, though the score was immaterial. Inconsistency plagued the Cubs all season, and it doomed them in October. They hit into four double plays and stranded nine runners. They yielded three home runs and wasted Arizona's 13 strikeouts. The Cubs were, for lack of a better adjective, the Cubs."

The Tribune's Melissa Isaacson quotes Mark DeRosa, who we'll give the last word, as saying: "We took a team that lost 96 games to the playoffs and that has to be viewed as a success, but we didn't accomplish what we wanted and it's hard to view that as anything but depressing."