National League Championship Series
Who: Cubs (97-65, wild card) vs. Mets (90-72, first in East) in a best-of-seven series.
Game 1: Saturday at New York: Lester (11-12) vs. Harvey (13-8), 5:07 p.m. TBS
Game 2: Sunday at New York: Arrieta (22-6) vs. TBD, 5:07 p.m. TBS
Game 3: Tuesday at Chicago: 5:07 p.m., TBS
Game 4: Wednesday at Chicago: 5:07 p.m., TBS
Game 5 (if necessary): Thursday at Chicago: 5:07 p.m., TBS
Game 6 (if necessary): Oct. 24 at New York: 1:07 p.m., or 5:07 p.m. if ALCS is over, TBS
Game 7 (if necessary): Oct. 25 at New York: 5:07 p.m., TBS
The skinny: Believe it or not, the Mets are still looking for their first win against the Cubs this year. The Cubs went 7-0, sweeping a four-game series at Wrigley in May in which Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard and Matt Harvey pitched consecutively, then three at Citi Field as June turned to July.
New York’s blazing young starters were not the issue. The Mets totaled 11 runs in the seven games at a time when David Wright was still rehabbing his back and Yoenis Céspedes was a Detroit Tiger.
The Cubs did themselves a huge favor by clinching their Division Series two days ahead of the Mets, providing an advantage in pitching alignment. Manager Joe Maddon has his two best, Jon Lester and Jake Arrieta, starting the first two games. For New York, deGrom will not pitch until Game 3.
Although the Mets own a better offense than when they played the Cubs in-season, they will need more than they got in the Division Series from Wright (1-for-16, albeit a big hit), Lucas Duda (2-for-18, 11 strikeouts), Travis d’Arnaud (3-for-19) and Céspedes (5-for-20, one loud home run).
As the Cubs proved in their power barrage against the Cardinals, any team that plays them needs to bring a fair amount of stick to the fight.
Players to watch: How can anyone peel his eyes away from Chicago’s Kyle Schwarber when he hits. Goodness, his Game 4 homer against Kevin Siegrist landed on top of a giant new video board above the right-field bleachers at Wrigley and stuck there.
This series will feature great power-vs.-power matchups between homer-happy Cubs hitters who can blast fastballs (Schwarber, Anthony Rizzo, Jorge Soler, Kris Bryant) and Mets pitchers not shy about trying to blow the ball by them.
Cubs shortstop Javier Baez will be in the spotlight offensively and defensively as he replaces an injured Addison Russell.
It will be fun to see whether Mets second baseman Daniel Murphy can add zeroes to his next contract the way he did against the Dodgers.