LOS ANGELES -- When it comes to the mental psyche of baseball players, consider me an agnostic most of the time. I refuse to strongly believe there's some kind of strong mental edge for some teams and players, but there's also no chance I'd dismiss that these are absolutely human beings who can be affected by human emotions.

On the latter front, it seems to me that the overwhelming majority of baseball fans would believe that if there were some sort of "mentality" advantage in this NLCS, the Dodgers would hold the advantage, particularly after the Dodgers got out to a 2-1 series lead. Because then the Cubs players would have to talk about goats and curses and a certain fan who I refuse to name and all that jazz, right?

Because at the first sign of adversity, the Cubs will become "the Cubs" and just crumble. Or so many fans and media members believe, want to believe or simply just internally feel.

Yeah, we're only through five games, but the thing that has become evident the past two games is that the opposite has actually happened. We've seen how mentally tough these Cubs are while the Dodgers have -- maybe temporarily, sure, but it's happened -- exposed themselves as mentally weak.

Take Game 4.

The Cubs had just gone through 21 innings without scoring a run. They ended up plating four in the top of the fourth. They would add one in the fifth and then the Dodgers would rally for two to cut the lead to 5-2. How did the Cubs respond? With a collapse? A black cat running in front of the on-deck circle before everything fell apart? Nah, try a five-run inning to bury the Dodgers, execution style.

When it was 10-2, Joc Pederson had a nice little temper tantrum in the box -- an audible f-bomb when down eight? Really, Joc? -- when he was correctly punched out by home plate umpire Angel Hernandez.

Contrast that to Anthony Rizzo playing good guy:

After the game, the Dodgers -- who had just lost 10-2, mind you -- wanted to hop on Twitter immediately to tell everyone they were jobbed.

Um, you lost by eight, guys. Plus, are we 100 percent sure Gonzalez was safe? Why was there a shadow under his hand?

For the record, I hate stuff like this on replay. I believe Gonzalez should have been safe and this is totally against the spirit of the rule, but if we're nitpicking every play the way MLB has been doing in replay, isn't it at least reasonable to think maybe Gonzalez's hand was above the plate due to the shadow at the time Gonzalez was tagged?

Digression aside, let's dive in on the tweets.

When you lose a game by eight runs, tweeting about a single call the second the game ends (check the Gonzalez time-stamp vs. when Game 4 ended) is a bad look. I have zero issue with players honestly answering questions because responses should be honest, but tweeting is voluntary. Even if Gonzalez didn't do it and a PR person did, it hasn't been deleted, which means he's OK with it having his name on it.

Does that really not seem mentally weak? To be so caught up on a call like that after losing by eight freaking runs?

It's a bad look, no matter how you slice it.

Be real. Think of it this way:

By all means, guys, blame the eight-run loss on the umpire. That seems like something winners do, right? I'm taken back to almost two decades ago (aside: Holy smokes I can't believe I'm this old already) and I can hear my college coach saying "control what you can control."

Coach Morgan's message: You can't control the weather, the umpire's calls, things the other team does to you, etc. You can, however, control your own actions.

On this front, the Dodgers failed on Wednesday. Not only did they seem to become lost based upon one thing they couldn't control (the call), but they also actively sabotaged themselves on what should have been a simple sac fly and could have been a double play to prevent a run.

In the top of the eighth, with the bases loaded, Javier Baez lined out to center. It was a very good catch by Pederson. Of course, Ben Zobrist was a country mile off first base and easily could have been doubled up. Instead, the throw went toward home, but there was some sort of miscommunication with the cut-off man. Then catcher Yasmani Grandal just straight-up missed it, helping Rizzo to score and make it 10-2.

Sure, it probably didn't matter in the grand scheme of things, but did this seem like a team in total, mental control?

To me, the play signified a team that was out of sorts and being outplayed, both physically and mentally.

The issues carried over into Thursday, where the Dodgers had this amazing (please detect the sarcasm, people) game plan to mess with Jon Lester's head. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts even specifically said that the Dodgers' game plan was to try and rattle Lester.

"Whatever you want to call it, he just doesn't feel comfortable throwing the baseball," Roberts said before Game 4. "So obviously as good of a pitcher as he is, yeah, we're going to get huge leads and try to bunt on them and try to get in his psyche a little bit. So I think if we can get him a little uncomfortable, is what we tried to do in Game 1, we're going to do more of that

Guys, he's seen this. Lester wasn't even remotely fazed. When he was asked after the game if the Dodgers were bothering him on the bases, he immediately just said, "no."

"People have been doing it all year," Lester said. "I just got done saying earlier, I'd prefer Adrian Gonzalez and Joc Pederson to try to bunt. They're home run guys. They hit 30 homers, so I'd rather them put the ball on the ground and let these guys try to field it and take my chances that way."

As yet another contrast, let's look at the top of the eighth. Addison Russell led off by reaching on pitcher Pedro Baez's error. After a Willson Contreras single, Albert Almora had a bad bunt, but Baez couldn't cleanly grab it. So the runners moved over. The Cubs followed with two infield singles that we could argue were equal parts Cubs hustle and Dodgers' defensive failures. After a Rizzo lineout and Zobrist walk, Javy Baez doubled home three to essentially end the game.

What stuck out? Well, the Cubs being great, as they've been all year, sure. But what about the "I wanna play mind games" Dodgers mentally falling apart? That seems pretty apt to me.

Bottom line: The mentally tough game took control of this series in L.A., and it wasn't the team that spent over 24 hours talking about mind games. It was the team supposedly saddled with 108 years of baggage.

Things could change for sure. There's a reason the NLCS is seven games and not five. The Dodgers could very well bounce back and win the two games in Wrigley Field, advancing the silly and fictional goat narratives. How things look right now, however, the smart money is on these mentally tough Cubs taking care of business against an opponent that is physically -- and seemingly mentally -- inferior.