Marlins like sound of winner-take-all game

Florida could become the fourth team to overcome a 3-1 deficit in an LCS.
CHICAGO (AP) -- If the Chicago Cubs get the lead in Game 7 of the NL championship series tonight, they'll know they're in trouble.
All season the Florida Marlins have been at their best when behind. They showed remarkable resilience again Tuesday night, erasing a three-run deficit against Cubs ace Mark Prior and scoring eight runs in a bizarre eighth inning to win, 8-3.
The comeback evened the series and forced the first winner-take-all game in the NLCS since 1996, when Atlanta beat St. Louis.
Didn't roll over
"We were supposed to just fall over and play dead," Marlins manager Jack McKeon said. "We came in to make it a seven-game series, and thank God we're going to do that."
The Cubs, desperate to shed their image as lovable losers and reach the World Series for the first time since 1945, will be battling ghosts of previous late-season chokes.
The Marlins have a history too, even though they're just 11 years old, and for them Game 7 has a sweet sound. The only time they played one was in the 1997 World Series, when Edgar Renteria singled home the winning run in the 11th inning to beat Cleveland, 3-2.
That kind of clutch hit has been a staple of the 2003 Marlins, who were five outs from the end of a serendipitous season when they rallied Tuesday at Wrigley Field.
The pitchers
The Marlins lost three of the first four games in the series, but they've climbed out of that Cubbie hole. Josh Beckett started Florida's comeback with a two-hit shutout in Game 5, and he'll be available to pitch an inning or two in relief tonight.
Left-hander Mark Redman is scheduled to start against Kerry Wood of Chicago.
"Another do-or-die game," said Florida's Carl Pavano, who kept the Cubs close for 52/3 innings in Game 6. "We're looking forward to the challenge."
Wood is good, but so is Prior, who was cruising toward a shutout in the eighth when the Marlins rallied faster than you can say Tinker to Evers to Chance.
"It's going to take us the rest of the night to figure out what happened in the eighth," said Florida's Jeff Conine, who drove in the tiebreaking run.
First Juan Pierre doubled with one out. Then came a play that might haunt the Cubs for decades.
Fan's folly
Luis Castillo worked the count to 3-2 and slapped a foul fly down the left-field line. Moises Alou ran to the wall and leaped for the ball, but a souvenir-seeking fan in the first row wearing a Cubs cap deflected it away.
The next pitch by an unnerved Prior was wild, allowing Castillo to reach on a walk as Pierre went to third.
Ivan Rodriguez singled on an 0-2 pitch to drive in Florida's first run. Then shortstop Alex Gonzalez bobbled Miguel Cabrera's two-hopper for an error to load the bases.
"When that happened, you just had the feeling on the bench that we finally got a break," McKeon said. "And we cashed in."
Lee hit a two-run double on the next pitch to tie the score. After reaching second base, he threw a roundhouse punch of satisfaction because it was just his fourth hit in 26 at-bats in the series.
That was all for Prior, who deserved better. Kyle Farnsworth came on, and Conine's sacrifice fly -- sandwiched between two intentional walks -- put the Marlins ahead.
The Marlins overcame a 19-29 start this season to win a tight wild-card race. They came from behind in all three division series victories against San Francisco. They erased a 4-0 deficit to beat the Cubs in Game 1.
And now they need one more win to become only the fourth team to overcome a 3-1 deficit in an LCS.
"We're ready," Rodriguez said, "to win a championship."