LESTER LACKS LUSTER IN LOSS
Cubs will needmore from veteran lefty if they’re to beat the well-armed Mets
NEW YORK— Isn’t this why Jon Lester was hired? To win really tough ballgames like this one, in the postseason?
I could be wrong— and it’s not like Lester was terrible Saturday night in the Cubs’ 4-2 loss to the Mets at Citi Field. But he wasn’t very good. He gave up eight hits, two home runs, a walk and four earned runs in 6‰ innings.
Unimpressive numbers. Lousy, if you believe that hopeful championship teams must have great pitching to lead the way— especially when it’s cold out, the leaves are falling and some batters are so frigid, they’re dressed like kids going outdoors to build snowmen.
And average sure isn’t going to work when you’re going up against a pitcher having a night like the Mets’ Matt Harvey was. The 26-year-old right-hander struck out six of the first 12 Cubs he faced and had a perfect game through four innings.
Chants of ‘‘Harvey! Harvey!’’ filled the night air, even after he gave up an eighth-inning home run to hotter-than-uranium Cubs slugger Kyle Schwarber. Harvey then left the game, but his meager two earned runs surrendered were the result of a precise game that was pretty much in keeping with his 2.71 regular-season ERA. Indeed, in three seasons, Harvey has never had an ERA above 2.73.
When Justin Grimm relieved Lester in the seventh inning, well, it didn’t seem like an important change. The damage was done. Or rather, the good stuff Cubs fans had hoped for had never occurred.
Back to the original premise: Wasn’t winning big games like this— even if your team is facing a dynamic pitcher on the other side— the reason the Cubs signed Lester to a six-year, $155 million deal last December? Maybe I’m missing something, but if merely being a ‘‘solid’’ pitcher, a ‘‘gamer,’’ an ‘‘innings-eater’’ is enough to give a 31-year-old lefty almost $26 million a year for over half a decade, then the money pit in Cubs-land is pretty deep.
In truth, there were stretches when Lester seemed in control. But they were sporadic and tenuous. In the fourth inning, he opened with a
walk to third baseman David Wright, who then stole second base. But Lester struck out No. 3 and 4 hitters Daniel Murphy and Yoenis Cespedes and got catcher Travis d’Arnaud to fly out.
That was nice work. Solid. Bigtime.
But a bad vibe was created when Lester gave up a mighty home run, partly riding the breeze to right field, to the third batter he faced, Murphy. A home run in the first inning is a bummer.
Lester’s fastball was mostly in the 91-92-mph range, which isn’t bad for a guy who isn’t known as a lights-out fireballer. And a couple of his low-70s curveballs had hitters almost falling on their faces.
But Harvey was blazing away in the high-90s, and it doesn’t get much easier with these Mets pitchers. On Sunday night, it’s 23-year-old rookie strikeout ace Noah Syndergaard starting for them. Soon up is the lovely locked and 98-mph-throwing All-Star Jacob de Grom.
The thing for the Cubs is that they can’t ride Jake Arrieta and his amazing stuff all the way to the promised land. Maybe, with luck and effort, you can ride a pair of aces all the way— fill in the blanks with the bullpen and short starters. But Lester is going to have to rise for this postseason chase to go on much longer.
Manager Joe Maddon said he was proud of his guys and that they played hard.
‘‘Sometimes you have to give credit to the other guy pitching,’’ Maddon said. ‘‘He was really that good tonight.’’
Well, those are the kind of words the Cubs need to hear from an opposing manager, about Lester.
It was noted that Harvey is some kind of special ‘‘cold weather’’ dude, that he has an ERA of 1.05 when the temperature is below 50 degrees.
Maybe Harvey should join the Siberian League and dominate everything until the ice caps melt.
Or maybe Lester can come up with a gem of a game when he next pitches in this series. Dig deep. Be crafty.
Because one more game in 2015 might be all he gets.