True complete game for Lester, Chicago Cubs
What's all this talk about the Chicago Cubs being afraid to face Johnny Cueto in a Game 5 of the division series last year?
After all, the Cubs would have had Jon Lester going if it had gone that far last October.
"I'm not too shabby, right?" Lester said Tuesday night after he and the Cubs bested Cueto and the San Francisco Giants 4-1 at Wrigley Field. "I've had a decent career. Naw … nobody wants to face a guy like that. He was throwing the ball really, really well at that time."
Lester was the man to be feared Tuesday night. He tossed the Cubs' first complete game of the season and the 15th of his career, giving up 4 hits while walking none and striking out 10.
It was his first complete game since last Sept. 2, also against the Giants. Lester threw only 99 pitches in a game that took only 2 hours and 5 minutes to play after a rain delay of 1 hour and 5 minutes at the start.
The Cubs got solo home runs from Kyle Schwarber and Jason Heyward and a 2-run blast from Anthony Rizzo, and Lester did the rest.
"Jon Lester, that's classic stuff," said Cubs manager Joe Maddon, whose team improved to 23-21. "He just kept getting better. He had the one inning (the 1-run fifth), where they had about three or four balls (hit) well in a row. I was really checking that out."
Schwarber got the Cubs going by hitting one worth checking out, a blast onto Sheffield Avenue beyond the right-field bleachers in the bottom of the first. The ball carried 470 feet.
"Whoa, it got small fast," Maddon said. "It's almost like when you used to watch 'Star Trek.' It came on, and the Enterprise would just fly by the screen and get really small. It kind of had that Enterprise-esque look to it. It was there and it was gone. It just got small quickly."
Schwarber, who has 7 homers, said it felt as good as it looked.
"You know when it hit barrel because you don't feel it as much," he said. "It was a good feeling today and a good team win."
The complete game wasn't only Lester's. The Cubs have been searching all year to put it all together in all facets of the game, and they've been getting close on this homestand.
Against the Giants, they played errorless ball and looked crisp all night.
"I think it's been close for a while," Lester said. "I feel like we just haven't put it all together at once. I've said it a million times and I hate to beat a dead horse with it, but I feel like when we pitch well we don't hit, and when we hit we don't pitch well. So it's kind of been back and forth for us.
"It's nice to limit runs and give our guys a chance. I said earlier tonight, our guys put up 2 runs against Johnny Cueto, you try not to waste those. You know he's not going to give up too many. We were able to put 4 up there and that was huge. When you're able to get to a guy like that, you don't want to waste those opportunities on my end."