Chicago Cubs: Jon Lester’s five best starts as a Cub

Chicago Cubs: The beginning of the Cubs journey to the World Series in 2016 started with a Jon Lester gem

Game one of the 2016 NLDS against the Giants at Wrigley Field was an epic duel of All-Star pitchers: Lester vs. Johnny Cueto. The main highlight of the game would be the lone run scored on a Baez solo homer in the eighth inning, but Lester was a massive contributor to the win.

Lester threw eight innings of shutout baseball against the Giants and held them to five hits and walked zero batters. Sixty of his 86 pitches were strikes and he got 11 groundballs. He got some help from battery mate David Ross who picked off a runner from first and threw out another trying to steal against Lester.

Every out and run off the board by Lester was needed in the Cubs 1-0 win. Cueto was matching him pitch for pitch and neither pitcher had any room for error. It was one of four starts from Lester that postseason he surrendered five hits or less.

Final Line: 8.0 IP / 0 R / 0 ER / 5 H / 0 BB / 5 K

That is my list for top-five Lester starts as a Cub. Are there other starts worthy of being on this list? There are a few ones could make an argument for, but it is hard to argue against two postseason gems and a near no-hitter.