NEWSLETTER
Well, that was our first wild taste of the new extra-innings rule, as described here. Short version? Cubs had to make it through a couple Pirates innings unscathed, but pulled it off, and then Javy Báez walked it off. The Cubs get the sweep!
Jon Lester gave up a solo homer to the second batter he faced, and needed 47 pitches to get through the first two innings. And yet he wound up going six innings, allowing no other runs, and once again doing a great job at limiting the hard contact. I feel like these first two Lester starts have given us a taste of what Lester COULD be now as more of a control/command crafty lefty than the “stuff” guy he was in his heyday. It’s kinda the transition we were seeing him make over the last two years (with mixed results), and we’ve now seen two really good starts of it so far in 2020.
The Cubs got three scoreless innings out of Casey Sadler and Dan Winkler through the top of the 9th, but then the skies opened up for a rain delay that lasted more than an hour. The Cubs couldn’t walk it off in the 9th, so Ryan Tepera and Jeremy Jeffress (with help from the defense) had to pull off another couple scoreless innings DESPITE starting theirs with runners on second base. Pretty incredible work today from the bullpen.
Which is not to say Jon Lester wasn’t also awesome, it’s just that this was shocking:
