The Cubs reduced their magic number to one in ruthlessly efficient fashion, cruising blithely through St. Louis as if the Cardinals were a light spring rain. It was a game that took just over two and a half hours and yet still managed to be relaxing, even pleasantly boring. Finding myself in Vegas, I put money on the game to juice my interest as a non-fan, but the Cubs made my wager seem as safe and predictable as a government bond. Jon Lester made a convincing claim on the Cy Young award, pitching eight innings with just 104 pitches and was backed up by seven Cubs runs, three of them on two Anthony Rizzo home runs.
Of the two starting performances, the Cardinals’ Carlos Martinez, had, early in the game, the more overtly dazzling one. He struck out the side in the first and had eight Ks through four innings, a feat he achieved by changing speeds effectively and seemingly beginning every at-bat with an 0-1 count—when he was at his best. By comparison, Lester, though by no means grinding, didn’t show the kind of mastery that leaps off the screen. He fell behind a number of hitters and didn’t feature 98-mph gas as Martinez did. When he (of all people) knocked in Baez with a single in the third, it seemed likely to be a crucial run in a tight-fought pitchers duel.
Yet the game finished a Cubs blowout, partly because Martinez didn’t seem to have many weapons other than striking guys out. After his eighth strikeout, in the fourth, he didn’t tally another until the sixth, in between which the Cubs had scored three more runs to make it 4-0, on homers from David Ross and Anthony Rizzo.
That was enough to put the game out of reach, since Lester was pitching an unassuming masterpiece. He wasn’t getting as many strikeouts, but that may be because the Cardinals weren’t giving him the chance: every couple of pitches, it seemed, they were turning another 1-0 or 1-1 pitch into an easy grounder or weak popup. He was just as strong near the end of the game as at the beginning; he entered the seventh having thrown only 80 pitches, and got through the seventh with two two-pitch groundouts and a five-pitch strikeout.
There was no magic to what Lester was doing; he just located the ball at the edges of the strike zone and kept the hitters off-balance with off-speed pitches. Mainly, he just didn’t make mistakes. Of his four hits allowed, only two were on mild mistake pitches. When Martinez or the relievers that followed him made a mistake, the Cubs hit it hard, to the tune of three homers.
The Cardinals never even made it to second base, though not for a lack of somewhat desperate trying: they seemed a little too in love with Lester’s refusal to throw to first, and not respectful enough of his quickness to the plate and David Ross’s arm, resulting in two runners being caught stealing by plenty. The Cards’ broadcasters gave some inadvertent insight into this mindset: immediately after Aledmys Diaz was thrown out trying to steal second, on a bounced throw from Ross no less, they told viewers that Diaz was now four for eight in steal attempts but stressed that they liked the move anyway because runners can get such a big lead on Lester. If other teams feel that they just can’t resist steal attempts, Lester’s pickoff yips might be a hidden asset instead of a liability. (Grichuk’s caught-stealing in the fifth should probably have been overturned on review, due to a weird arrangement of baseball equipment around second base, unless you can tag a player out on a helmet that he is no longer wearing.)
But reaching second once or twice, while it might have saved the Cardinals’ egos, wouldn’t have made a difference in the game, which was blown open in the top of the ninth. Jorge Soler hit a pinch-hit single, Kris Bryant an RBI double, another Rizzo homer, and it was suddenly 7-0—to the loud delight of the large Cubs contingent at Busch. Much more noise seems likely to greet the Cubs sometime in the next few days, when they clinch the division. As for me, I’m up $35 on the game, so I guess we’re all happy.
Lead photo courtesy Jeff Curry—USA Today Sports