Lester's best effort can't keep Chicago Cubs from 1-0 loss
With a postseason berth probable for the Cubs, they figure to go as far into October as their starting pitchers can take them.
So it was great news to see Jon Lester get back on track Friday in Milwaukee. The veteran lefty threw 6 scoreless innings and allowed just 3 hits.
Brewers starter Brandon Woodruff was even better on this night, though, and the Cubs lost 1-0 on a walk-off sacrifice fly in the bottom of the ninth.
After opening the season with 3 solid starts, Lester hit a slump. In his last five trips to the mound, he posted a 9.26 ERA. So everyone saw this performance as a positive, even with the loss.
"There were some adjustments that needed to be made physically on the mound," Lester said. "Just needed to figure out what was going on. There was something going on. We really dove into some stuff in the last week. I feel like we made some adjustments.
"Obviously the results were good tonight and I don't want to say we reinvented the wheel and found some magical cure or anything, but the adjustments that we did make in my bullpen, the stuff just translated better.
"At the end of the day, the results were good. Build off that. We lost the game, but on a personal, just me getting back to being me, it was good."
Against Woodruff, the Cubs managed just 1 hit, a single by Ian Happ leading off the sixth. Woodruff struck out 12 in 7 innings, his longest stint this season.
"That guy's stuff is incredible," Lester said of Woodruff. "He should be a fixture in baseball as a dominant pitcher for a long time. To match zeros with him, give our team a chance, that's all you can really do when a guy's on like that."
The Cubs also had to face the Brewers' A-team in relief. Kris Bryant got a two-out triple against Devin Williams in the eighth, but the Cubs went down in order against Josh Hader in the ninth.
Cubs manager David Ross took a chance with his bullpen that didn't pay off. Craig Kimbrel and Rowan Wick were perfect in the seventh and eighth innings. But instead of turning to closer Jeremy Jeffress to start the ninth, Ross stuck with Wick, who walked Christian Yelich and gave up a single to Jed Gyorko.
So with runners on first and third, Jeffress came in and Ryan Braun ended it with a sacrifice fly to right that was deep enough to not even warrant a throw home.
"Got to make them swing the bat," Ross said. "Tough one there, then you got kind of a jam shot to right from Gyorko. Like the matchup with Wick the best in trying to get to Braun for JJ, but didn't work out tonight."
Kimbrel has now held the opponent scoreless in nine of his last 10 appearances. In that span, he has an impressive 21 strikeouts in 9 1/3 innings.
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