As Game 4 of the National League Championship Series began, the Chicago Cubs were reeling, after being shut out twice in succession by the Dodgers.

Three innings into the game, the Cubs scoreless streak had reached 21 innings, as rookie Dodgers rookie left-hander Julio Urias looked formidable.

Urias should have had a lead, but his teammates couldn’t quite get that accomplished. Justin Turner suffered brain cramp and was picked off second by Cubs catcher Willson Contreras’s throw to end the first inning with Adrian Gonzalez at the plate. An inexcusable error by Turner, a veteran in scoring position.

An inning later, the lumbering Gonzales made the final out at home while trying to score from second on a single by Andrew Toles. To be sure, it was a controversial decision — replays seemed to indicate Gonzalez had gotten under the tag. But the decision stood.

Those were missed chances, but what really called for a “dum-dee-dum-dum” riff?

The bunt single by Ben Zobrist to open the fourth inning.

Remember, the Cubs were doing nothing with the bats. Whiffing a lot. Failing to get on base. Not hitting with runners in scoring position.

Urias had not allowed a hit through three innings, getting out of a jam in the second when Chase Utley erred by dropped the ball on what should have been an inning-ending doubleplay.

When Zobrist came out to start the fourth, he represented the 13th at-bat by the Cubs. He was hitting cleanup, but he surprised the Dodgers by dropping a bunt up the third-base line.

It was a single without a play. And it just seemed like a pregnant moment. Almost immediately, I was thinking of how many viewers were going to look back and say, “It was the shortest hit that turned around that game.”

Javier Baez followed with a two-strike soft single to left. Contreras also looped a single to left, but outfielder Toles was on the ball so quickly that Zobrist should have been out, easily, at the plate. Instead, Toles threw the ball up the first-base line, missing home by 15 feet, and Zobrist scored. It was an error on Toles.

Heyward pushed home the second run as he grounded out to second.

And then Addison Russell stepped up and hit a two-run home run to right-center. Cubs 4-0, hitting slump over. Direction of series suddenly pointing straight at Chicago.

It ended 10-2, and by the end the Dodgers were the utterly dysfunctional team. They committed f0ur errors, their bullpen leaked six runs, they left nine runners on base.

And it all goes back to that bunt. One perhaps the Dodgers should have anticipated, given how desperate the Cubs were to get something, anything going.

For a day there, the Dodgers were in control of the series. Then a 20-foot hit changed everything.

I don’t like their chances. They seemed on track to take a 3-1 series lead against a team demonstrably better than they are, and they couldn’t hammer home an advantage against a team that hasn’t won a championship since 1908. A victory tonight, the Cubs would get tight. Very tight. But it didn’t happen when it could have.

Years from now, when the Dodgers are still trying to get to a World Series for the first time since 1988, some of us all will remember Game 4 of the 2016 NLCS, and we will begin the conversation by saying: “Ah, yes, the Zobrist bunt.”