Can Piniella stay with same lineup?

The lineup Cubs manager Lou Piniella trotted out Wednesday evening for Game 1 of the division series is the one he'd like to keep trotting out.

But that might not be possible, or palatable to Piniella, after Wednesday night's 7-2 loss to the Dodgers.

That lineup contained Mark DeRosa playing second base and Kosuke Fukudome in right field batting second.

DeRosa hit a 2-run homer in the second. However, Fukudome went 0-for-4.

"I'd like to stay just the way we are," Piniella said while relaxing in his office with a crossword puzzle before the game. "Fukudome is very capable of having a nice postseason. Let's see. With the wind blowing and everything else, we went with good defense in the outfield.

"I can see us staying this way. We've also get to look and see how DeRosa's leg is, too. I think he'll be fine, but until you really press it in a game, you're not 100, 100 percent sure."

DeRosa strained his left calf Sept. 24 in New York, and Game 1 of the NLDS was his first game action since then. Piniella said he felt playing second base would be easier for DeRosa than playing the outfield.

"This is basically a lineup that's played a lot this summer and helped us get here," Piniella said. "I'd like to just stay the way we are. We need our left-hand hitters to hit here a little bit."

If Piniella is going to make one change for Thursday, it might be to move DeRosa to right field, play Mike Fontenot at second and bench Fukudome, who had a miserable second half of the regular season.

"Well, it's Game 1 only," Piniella said after the game. "Let's hope we get better with it. We need to swing the bats, no question."

Will he make changes?

"We'll see," he said. "We'll see tomorrow. I'm not sure. Let's wait until tomorrow and see."

Roster crunch: As it turned out, the speed and defensive ability of center fielder Felix Pie trumped the power potential of first-baseman-outfielder Micah Hoffpauir. Pie won the final roster spot for the NLDS over Hoffpauir.

"We talked about it long and hard," Lou Piniella said. "It came down to the versatility of Pie. I wasn't going to use Hoffpauir in postseason in the outfield. I've got Derrek Lee at first, so we decided to go for the versatility and the defense, the speed. Actually, Pie, since he's come back, has swung the bat a little better. Those were the determining factors."

This and that: Mark DeRosa's homer was his first career home run in the postseason. ... The 7 walks issued by starting pitcher Ryan Dempster tied the club record, last done by Tex Carleton in 1935.