Pirates – Eh Hem – Fall to the Cubs, Lester’s Historic Mini-Streak, and Other Bullets

Jun 10, 2018

LeBron’s comin’ to the Cubs. Something something superteam. Something something rings. Something something Jordan. Did I do the sports talk right?

The Cubs are going for the sweep today, and are now a season-high 13 games over .500. They’re a half-game behind the Brewers in the NL Central (one ahead in the loss column), and those are the best two teams in the NL by record. It would be nice if the Phillies could do a little something today against the Brewers to avoid that sweep.

Jon Lester’s ERA now stands at 2.22, third best in the National League. He held the Pirates to just one hit yesterday over seven innings, allowing no runs, two walks, and striking out five. It was his best start this year by Game Score (80), and better than every start last year except his near no-hitter against the Giants back in May 2017. Lester gave up a lot of hard contact yesterday, believe it or not, but here’s the thing: almost all of the hard contact came on the ground. If you can pull off that trick, you can not only survive a lot of hard contact, you can have a great day, like he did, especially if you don’t walk anyone and sprinkle in some strikeouts.

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What a factoid from Cubs.com about Lester’s last two starts: “Lester is the first Cubs pitcher with two consecutive starts of at least seven scoreless innings and two hits or fewer in the same season since Orval Overall did so in September 1909.”

When a Pirates outfielder completely biffs on a fly ball and wipes out at Wrigley Field like Starling Marte did yesterday on Jason Heyward’s fly ball to help the Cubs get their only two runs, there is only one thing that comes to mind. And God Bless Cubs Insider for putting this together:

Chariots of Failure pic.twitter.com/q8DT7qhNRa

— Cubs Insider (@realcubsinsider) June 9, 2018

In case you don’t recognize the one on the right, or just want to re-live one of the most fun moments in Cubs-Pirates recent history, here you go:

A walk-off after a long game, rally buckets, JD dropping an “un-freaking-believable.” Ah. One of my favorite highlights ever.

Yesterday’s wasn’t a walk-off, and wasn’t quite as dramatically ridiculous, but it was still fun:

We’ll have to actually dig into the numbers soon – I’m terrified to do it, because the jinx is strong with this guy – but this is simply a fact:

The Cubs lost Carl Edwards Jr. a week and a half ago and haven’t missed a beat. A huge reason?

Gulp.

Do even risk saying it?

*deep breath*

*hides from vengeful baseball gods*

[whispers more quietly than a titmouse] … Justin Wilson has been really awesome.

— Bleacher Nation (@BleacherNation) June 10, 2018

Pressure cookers, shoes, patio heaters, and (ooh, fun) airblown movie screens are among the Deals of the Day today at Amazon.

And Fanatics flipped a ton of stuff to clearance today, including a bunch of new Cubs gear. Free shipping, too. Go here to check it all out.

Big heads up: Fanatics flipped a ton of stuff to clearance today, including a bunch of new Cubs gear. Free shipping, too. Go here: https://t.co/BKVgOttxcs pic.twitter.com/Xqu9ys0Bpw
— Bleacher Nation (@BleacherNation) June 10, 2018

written by

Brett Taylor

Brett Taylor is the Lead Cubs Writer at Bleacher Nation, and you can find him on Twitter at @BleacherNation and on LinkedIn here. Brett is also the founder of Bleacher Nation, which opened up shop in 2008 as an independent blog about the Chicago Cubs. Later growing to incorporate coverage of other Chicago sports, Bleacher Nation is now one of the largest regional sports blogs on the web.

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Pirates – Eh Hem – Fall to the Cubs, Lester’s Historic Mini-Streak, and Other Bullets

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