CHICAGO -- Could the Chicago Cubs have their own version of Madison Bumgarner and Clayton Kershaw in the form of All-Star left-hander Jon Lester? The former two players have a postseason save on their résumé -- Kershaw earned his Thursday night in the Los Angeles Dodgers' series-clinching victory over the Washington Nationals -- but Lester has plenty of his own October success, culminating in two World Series championships with the Boston Red Sox.
The 32-year-old is the clear leader in the Cubs' rotation right now, particularly considering they are set to face a Dodgers team loaded with left-handed hitters in the National League Championship Series, which begins Saturday night. Manager Joe Maddon didn’t hesitate in choosing his starter for Game 1.
“To get picked again to go No. 1, that's really a cool honor,” Lester said Friday afternoon at Wrigley Field. “Our staff has been really, really good this year, and I think that, really, if you put all of our names in a hat and pulled one out, I don't think you could go wrong.”
But choosing Lester was hardly a random maneuver by Maddon. Coming off eight shutout innings against the San Francisco Giants in Game 1 of the National League Division Series, he was the easy choice. It doesn’t hurt that the Dodgers hit just .214 against lefties in the regular season, either. Lester figures to play a big role over the course of this series as the lone lefty starter in Chicago's rotation.
“He's good,” Maddon said. “And right now he's at the top of his game. I mean, from what I've seen, he's had a couple hiccups, which everybody does. But, man, he's been pretty much right-on the last couple months, including the first game of the playoffs for him. So he definitely right now, the way he's going about his business, should really benefit the rest of our guys who walk on the field tomorrow.”
In other words, Lester makes other players better simply with his presence. It wasn’t always the case last season, his first with the Cubs, but after taking a year to get comfortable, he’s re-established himself as the ace of the team and a true playoff great. His career 2.63 postseason ERA isn’t far off of Bumgarner’s 2.11 and is over two runs lower than Kershaw’s.
“Getting settled in the new place, figuring out what's going on here, the travel and the teams, all that stuff,” Lester said of last season's adjustments. “And so, yeah, you spend a full year together and you grind through that season and you make the playoffs, you come back in the spring. I mean, we had, what, two new guys come in? Three new guys? One that I already knew. So, yeah, you're obviously going to feel more comfortable that second year as opposed to just getting thrown into that first year with a whole new atmosphere in front of you.”
Lester is a “feel” pitcher, so sometimes that feel wasn’t there for him in the past. But the more he got to know the National League, the more comfortable he became. And this season's Dodgers seem like a perfect matchup. In two games against them in 2016, Lester has thrown 15 innings and given up just one run.
Lester has also taken a larger leadership role in the clubhouse to go along with his improvement on the field. And he simply won’t accept the idea of a Cubs curse or thinking the worst will happen when issues arise on the fields. He didn’t claim to be speaking for his team when asked about it Friday, but he could have been. When things go south, the last thing any player is thinking about is past mistakes by Cubs teams none of the current players had anything to do with.
“It's baseball,” Lester said. “It's part of the game. And like I said before, it doesn't mean it's a curse or it's a black cat or a goat or whatever else it is, it's us making physical mistakes and we're going to move on and move on to the next moment, and hopefully we're able to have that next moment and do better.”
That’s actually a description of Lester from last season to this. He has moved on from some bad moments in 2015 to take hold of the Cubs' rotation and perhaps bring home his first Cy Young award. Meanwhile, this NLCS could elevate his status even further. Lester is on track to pitch in Games 1 and 5, if necessary. And considering the Dodgers' woes against left-handed pitching, maybe it's Lester running down to the bullpen late in a Game 7 situation. He won't take Aroldis Chapman’s job, but if a game goes to extra innings, Maddon must feel confident Lester is a guy he could go to.
“He's going to walk out there, he's going to be very comfortable in that moment," Maddon said. "Actually, inspired by that, I believe."
The Cubs are counting on it.