Lester flirts with no-hitter, stymies Giants for Cubs' 87th win
Straight-shooting Jon Lester wasn't going to feign ignorance.
As a gorgeous Friday afternoon unfurled itself at Wrigley Field, all in the crowd of 40,818 became aware that the Cubs left-hander was working on a no-hitter.
Lester's no-hit bid ended with two outs in the seventh inning when San Francisco Giants right fielder Hunter Pence pulled a home run to left field.
The game ended well enough for the Cubs, with Lester tossing a complete-game 3-hitter in a 2-1 victory.
How early was Lester thinking no-no?
"You go through the first inning, you think no-hitter," he said. "Anybody that tells you different is lying to you. Every time you go out there, you know when you haven't given up a hit or you don't have any baserunners. Yeah, it's obviously on everybody's mind."
Pitching against an aggressive-swinging Giants lineup, Lester threw 102 pitches. He watched as his defense make nice plays and earned his second complete game of the season. The 32-year-old lefty ran his record to 15-4 with a 2.61 ERA, and he, too, has to be considered a viable Cy Young candidate along with teammates Kyle Hendricks and Jake Arrieta.
More important, Lester is looking like the ace the Cubs hoped they were signing when they gave him a six-year contract before last season.
Lester had a better season last year than his 11-12 record indicated, but he's enjoying a remarkable 2016.
"Last year, his numbers were good, but I don't think Jon would tell you he had a good year," said David Ross, Lester's preferred catcher. "I think his numbers were really good, or consistent, for him.
"This is Jon Lester. This is the guy I know. He's the guy I've known since I've been catching him. This is typical Jon. He's going to go out, and he's going to keep you within striking distance and give you all he's got every time he steps on the mound. He expects perfection out of himself. I expect that out of him. He's having a phenomenal year."
Lester worked economically through the early innings as the Giants were more than happy to swing early and often. He got the first 2 outs of the seventh before Pence hit a 1-2 pitch over the wall in left. The next batter, Brandon Crawford, doubled before Eduardo Nunez lined out to third baseman Kris Bryant. Trevor Brown hit a one-out double in the eighth, but that was it.
Lester bemoaned the pitch to Pence.
"Yeah, it was terrible," he said. "I had a decent changeup today. Really, the only one I cut kind of came back to the middle, obviously not where I wanted it. It ended up not hurting us, so move on and keep making pitches after that."
The Cubs scored both of their runs in the third on an RBI double by Ross and a run-scoring single by Dexter Fowler.
With the victory, the Cubs moved to a whopping 40 games over .500 at 87-47 three days before Labor Day.
"It's pretty incredible," said manager Joe Maddon. "I've always talked about increments of 5. I remember back when we were just talking about 5. Pre-all-star break, we had that little bit of a hiccup, stubbed our toes, rebounded pretty nicely.
"I know you can see it from up top. There's good energy on the field. There's a strong belief that we're going to play a pretty good game. The defense and the pitching have really set the tone for the whole thing. The defense can show up every day. That's the one part of the game - pitching, a high percentage of the time if you have good pitchers, they're going to show up. Defense, if you're good, man, you should be there every day, and we've been there every day on defense.
"Offensively, we're good, but that's the one that's the variable for me."