Imrem: Where was the raucous Wrigley Field crowd?

Criticizing any Chicago sports crowd is inappropriate.

However …

Sorry, the Wrigley Field crowd of 42,231 wasn't as maniacal as the Cubs required it to be Tuesday night.

Fans certainly didn't help the Cubs avoid a 5-2 loss to the New York Mets in Game 3 of the National League championship series.

You'd think it would have been a rowdy and raucous atmosphere, but it didn't reach that level.

Meanwhile, Mets' pitching shut down the Cubs again. Daniel Murphy hit another home run. The home team had no answers.

“It's not that we haven't been that good,” Cubs manager Joe Maddon said. “(The Mets) have been that good.”

Under those circumstances, the Cubs needed a superpower to extract them from the predicament the Mets had plunged them into. Pitching ace Jake Arrieta didn't play the part in Game 2 and the Cubs dropped to an 0-2 deficit in the best-of-seven series.

So, who should have powered up to rescue the Cubs in Game 3?

Cubs fans, that's who.

It was up to the Wrigley Field crowd to change the mood by supercharging the ballpark.

Instead, the Cubs were left to generate their own adrenaline. Could it be that fans of this reputedly cursed franchise arrived expecting something bad to happen?

Cubs fans might have been a bit more jacked than for a regular-season game, but they were nowhere near as jacked as, say, Blackhawks fans are for a playoff game or perhaps even a game in January.

It might just be me, but it sure didn't sound like what tonight's Game 4 Cubs starter Jason Hammel said he felt last week in the NL division series.

“It was the first time,” Hammel said, “that I actually had a little bit of jitters because so much energy pulsing through me for the fans. They play a big part.”

Maybe my standards are too high. They were established in the 1984 NLCS in San Diego, which turned out to be another huge disappointment in Cubs' lore.

The Padres returned home trailing the Cubs 2-0 in the best-of-five series. They proceeded to win three straight in Jack Murphy Stadium to advance to the World Series.

How did that happen? I'm convinced to this day that the crowd energized the Padres by cheering and chanting and screaming and stomping two hours before the first pitch of Game 3 right through the last out of Game 5.

That's what I expected in Wrigley Field. Hey, if it can happen in laid-back southern California, it certainly can happen here.

But I never sensed that Cubs fans were going to make a difference on this night. It was their turn to electrify Wrigley Field and the switch never turned on.

It's not like the Mets took the crowd out of the game. The score was tied after five innings and the Cubs trailed only 3-2 after six.

Finally, in the eighth and ninth innings, the crowd came to life a bit in an effort to rally the Cubs from three runs down at that point.

Too late in this game and most likely in this series.

Here the Cubs are, playing for a chance to go to the World Series for the first time since 1945, and the crowd couldn't kick it up a couple notches.

Now, as Maddon said, it's about tonight's game: “We have to win three in a row but we have to win (Game 4).”

That'll give Cubs fans another chance to be rowdy and raucous.

It never hurts for the home crowd to boost the players by reminding them that they aren't in this alone.

Seriously, loud does work.

I saw it work in San Diego but not on this night in Chicago.

Wrigley Field fans weren't nearly the superpower they needed to be when the Cubs needed them the most.

mimrem@dailyherald.com