Warm weather, welcome from Wrigley all Cubs need

Things should get warmer for the Cubs this week at Wrigley Field.

They were greeted by gametime temperatures of 48 and 45 degrees, respectively, for Games 1 and 2 of the National League division series at New York's Citi Field.

They returned home Monday to gusty, warm winds out of the southwest for a workout at Wrigley Field in preparation for Games 3, 4 and 5 (if necessary) against the Mets.

"That's always nice," said third baseman Kris Bryant. "We were freezing (in New York). But when you're playing, you don't feel it that much. Their pitching is really good."

Mets pitching held the Cubs to 3 runs in two games to take a 2-0 lead over the Cubs in the best-of-seven series.

New York fans were loud, as usual, but now Cubs fans will have their voices heard in what should be warmer conditions at Wrigley.

"It's just nice to be home, period," said catcher David Ross. "The environment was different, as far as the weather and stuff, not that that's an excuse or a factor. But it's just nice. The sun out here today was good. It should be nice (Tuesday), and our home crowd is going to be a lot of fun. It's going to be exciting. This is a group that's not afraid. It's not afraid of losing. It doesn't approach the day like that."

Russell progressing:

If the Cubs come back and make it to the World Series, shortstop Addison Russell hopes to be ready to play. Russell is not on the championship series roster because of a moderate hamstring strain, suffered last week while legging out a triple in the division series against the Cardinals.

"I think (Tuesday) is going to be a big push day," Russell said Monday. "After that, think we're going to push even harder. It just depends on the next day, how it feels. Each day I wake up, it feels better, getting out of bed fine. Today I felt good."

Status quo for rotation:

Cubs manager Joe Maddon said Monday he was sticking by his plan to start Kyle Hendricks in Game 3 and Jason Hammel in Game 4 of the NLCS.

For now, there is no plan to bring Jon Lester back on short rest for Game 4 after he started Game 1 Saturday in New York.

"We're just going to play it straight as of right now," Maddon said. "We haven't thought about changing any of that. You have to win X number of games to get there, and 2, to push Jon to that point, I don't think we want to do that. We refrained from doing that in the previous round and it played out pretty well. We're going to do it again.

"Again, we can always change our methods, but as of right now we're not thinking about that at all."