Chicago Cubs continue to get dominance from veteran Jon Lester

After a poor showing in Spring Training, veteran Chicago Cubs hurler Jon Lester is once again proving he belongs among the game’s best hurlers this season.

This spring, you almost wondered if Jon Lester had lost a step – almost. The Chicago Cubs ace has been everything Theo Epstein could have ever hoped for when he locked down the veteran southpaw following the 2014 season – one in which the North Side ballclub lost 89 games.

Lester struggled to miss bats down in Arizona and the pundits immediately pointed to his age and more than 2,250 innings on his left arm as reasons for concern. But the page turned to the regular season and it was off to the races for the three-time World Series champion.

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In his first five starts of 2019, he has been nothing short of everything the Cubs needed. Following a shocking 1-7 start, the Cubs have rolled, winning 14 of their last 17 contests – with much of that coming without Lester, who suffered a hamstring injury that cost him just over two weeks.

But, when healthy, he’s been exactly what we’ve come to expect: a crafty veteran who no longer touches the mid-90s with his fastball, but gets batters out all the same. He’s allowed just 18 hits in 26 innings of work, working to a 0.962 WHIP and 1.73 ERA. His 3.86 strikeout-to-walk ratio would be his best single-season mark since 2015.

On Wednesday, Lester turned in another lights-out performance against a potent Seattle Mariners club at T-Mobile Park. He allowed a lone hit and walked just one over seven shutout frames, striking out eight. He talked to MLB.com after the game about using his cutter more effectively, which has added another element to his game.

“That was probably the best that the back-door cutter has been to righties,” Lester said. “But I mean obviously, having the shadows helped with that pitch. We were able to kind of exploit that a little bit more than we probably would have on a normal day. But yeah, probably with the exception of the fourth and fifth inning, I felt like I threw the ball really well.”

If one were to describe Lester’s tenure in Chicago, there is no better term than ‘consistent’. He’s made 32 starts in each of his first four seasons, never failing to eclipse the 180-inning plateau and crossing the 200-inning mark in two of those campaigns.

Last season, he led the league with 18 wins – a statistic undervalued by many in today’s game, but not the gritty old-school veteran. That performance came on the heels of one of his worst seasons in years – a 4.33 ERA showing in 2017. Again, at that point, more than a few people started to wonder if it was the beginning of the end.

At some point, you’d think we’d learn. Don’t doubt Jon Lester. When it’s his day to take the ball and toe the rubber, he’s going to grind his way through it all – one way or another. Good stuff, bad stuff or somewhere in between, Lester is a competitor and he’s never going to back down from a challenge.