Hard Day’s Night: Lester Falters Early, Cubs Unable to Recover
Jon Lester will very likely want forget about this night. He had his shortest outing of the year so far, lasting only 2 2/3 innings. He was up in the zone and lacked any real control all night on his way to surrendering five runs before being pulled in favor of Trevor Cahill.
The upside to this one was the outstanding performance of the bullpen. Trevor Cahill went 2 1/3 innings and looked really good doing it. He gave up only one hit and one walk while striking out three batters. Clayton Richard, Justin Grimm and Travis Wood joined in on the clean up duties and held the Giants scoreless for the remainder of the game.
Even though the bullpen was great, it was too little too late for the Cubs. They lose to the Giants 5-3 (box score).
Stats that mattered
- Jon Lester has seen better days – 2 2/3IP, 5R, 6H, 3BB, 1HR
- Matt Cain pitched like he was back in his golden years – 6IP, 1R, 6H, 2BB, 5Ks, 1HR
- Kris Bryant was good again tonight – 2-for-4, 1R, 1RBI, 1BB
- Dexter Fowler also had a very good game – 3-for-5, 1R, 1RBI
- Jorge Soler is showing signs of life – 1-for-3, 1R, 1BB
- The Cubs bullpen was great – 5 1/3IP, 0R, 3H, 2BB, 3Ks
Bottom line
This was a very bad performance by Jon Lester and a very good outing by Matt Cain. Not a great combination if you were hoping for a Cubs win. The Cubs didn’t have many scoring chances tonight, they were 1-for-6 with RISP, but they couldn’t convert when they did get those chances.
Anthony Rizzo was blanked tonight as well and that’s usually never good for the Cubs chances when that happens. We all know he’s the go-to-guy for the Cubs — the engine wasn’t humming tonight.
Next up
The Cubs will close out the series with the Giants tomorrow night on Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN at 7:05 PM CDT. Kyle Hendricks will take the hill for the Cubs as they shoot to steal the series from the Giants at AT&T Park.
