Meet the Mets, greet the Mets, beat the Mets. Badly.
Thankfully, the Cubs have beaten the Mets for the second night in a row, claiming this series with a chance for a sweep tomorrow. Fresh off a sweep by the Brewers, the Cubs desperately needed to win an extremely winnable series, and they have. Win again tomorrow, and I’ll do a little jig.
For the second straight start, Jon Lester was really missing his spots early (and often, the entire strike zone), and then he firmed things up as the night went on, and managed to turn things in to a nice start. It hasn’t been a dominant year for Lester like last year was, but hopefully he can at least provide the Cubs solid, reliable starts down the stretch and into the postseason.
Offensively, the Cubs had a lot of fun with the Mets’ September pitching contingent, starting with a short outing from Matt Harvey. He actually didn’t look that bad, and when he was missing, he wasn’t missing by much. But the Cubs were extremely patient, and worked him well.
The Cubs missed out on a run or more in the third inning when Jason Heyward grounded a single up the middle with two outs, ostensibly scoring Willson Contreras from second base. Except Ian Happ inexplicably lumbered into third base where he was easily thrown out … and even more inexplicably, Contreras was turned around watching the whole thing happen before he crossed home plate. It was mind-bogglingly terrible baseball awareness by both players, and it cost the Cubs a run, plus whatever else might have happened in the inning.
Contreras atoned for his gaffe the next time up, ripping a bases-loaded, two-run single into left, and the Cubs overall made the mistake completely superfluous by pilling on from there.
The Cubs got contributions up and down the lineup, and got big nights from Albert Almora and Rene Rivera … who were only in for half of the game.
It was a very September game, with the teams combining to use 100 or so odd players, and the game lasting four hours despite going only eight and a half innings.
But I don’t care about that. I care about another win.