Big day for Cubs' Jon Lester, Addison Russell
One of the cool things about baseball is that it's a game of firsts and a game of connections.
There were a couple of firsts for the Cubs in Friday's 1-0 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers at Wrigley Field.
Ace pitcher Jon Lester recorded his first victory as a Cub. Lester turned in a beauty, as he worked 7 innings of 3-hit ball, throwing 90 pitches. He improved to 1-2 and lowered his ERA from 6.23 to 4.71.
Rookie second baseman Addison Russell accounted for the game's only run with his first-major-league homer, a drive into the new but as yet unoccupied bleachers in left-center field.
There's a nice historical connection there. Before Friday, Phil Cavarretta was the last Cub whose first career home run accounted for the game's only run. That happened way back on Sept. 25, 1934, at Wrigley Field.
"It feels good, and it's made even more special because I'm here at Wrigley," said the 21-year-old Russell. "The fans jumping up and down, just hearing the crowd roar like that is just an awesome feeling."
Lester's performance was not at all unexpected. Despite some ugly numbers from April, he had been pitching better and seemed to be building toward a start like Friday's.
"He just keeps getting better," said manager Joe Maddon, whose team improved to 13-8. "It's going to keep getting better, too. The fastball was really good, I thought. The fastball was good. The cutter got better, game in progress. The changeup was there when he wanted it. Of course, the big old hook (curveball) was there a couple times."
Lester didn't seem to notice any trends as far as his performance goes.
"I don't know," he said. "I just plod along. That's what I've always done. As I've said, I don't know how many times, you look forward to the next one. This was great. It's a big game, especially 1-0, to be able to put up some zeros. We had some chances. Their guy (Brewers starter Wily Peralta) did pretty good, as well. It's on to the next one."
Maddon admitted to being ambivalent about whether to take Lester out or leave him in after 7 innings. Lester led off the bottom of the seventh as a batter and went back out to the mound before Maddon came to get him in favor of Pedro Strop, who held the Brewers before Hector Rondon earned his fifth save by working the ninth.
"That's not a short bench," he said of letting Lester hit. "I was ambivalent what I wanted to do there. But there was also the connection there. As a leadoff hitter, let him lead off. If he was batting second or third with somebody on base, we would have probably done something entirely different.
"The pitcher was coming up for them (Milwaukee). So they're going to have to choose who their pinch hitter is going to be and declare."
About those chances Lester mentioned, the Cubs had two runners thrown out trying to go from first to third on singles - Dexter Fowler in the first and Starlin Castro in the sixth. Anthony Rizzo also was caught stealing in the first, when the Cubs did not score despite hitting 3 singles.
Maddon was more than OK with the aggressiveness.
"I loved both of them; neither runner hesitated," Maddon said. "He who hesitates stops. If you hesitate at all, don't go. We're trying to go first to third. He who hesitates stops. Neither one hesitated. I was watching Starling really well. You've got to give them (the Brewers) credit."