Alan Truex: Cubs peaking at the right time, but starting pitching is the question

CHICAGO – Hailed as one of baseball’s all-time great teams when they won 103 games last season, capped by a World Series championship, the Chicago Cubs now have the seventh best record in the major leagues and have struggled to put away St. Louis and Milwaukee in the National League Central Division.

Looking for any kind of spark, the Cubs touted the ejection of starting pitcher John Lackey as being a rallying point.

In the fifth inning of a 1-1 game Friday against the Cards, Lackey threw a 2-2 pitch to the opposing pitcher, Carlos Martinez, who took what appeared to be a strike.  Martinez turned to walk to the dugout when umpire Jordan Baker surprised everyone watching Wrigley Field’s jumbotron by calling a ball.

Lackey protested vigorously, and even more so when Martinez knocked the next pitch for an RBI single.  Lackey showed a remarkable lack of composure for his age, 38, and was ejected from the game.

So was his catcher, Wilson Contreras, who tossed his mask and incurred a fine and a one-game suspension.

Instead of wilting, as they too often have done this season, the Cubs stormed back to win 8-2.

“I think it gave us some energy,” Kris Bryant said of the Lackey eruption.  “The crowd got into it.  I think it will help us.  . . . It was a perfect example of our mindset.”

But it’s also an example of the Cubs’ glaring weakness this season: an unreliable starting rotation.

Jon Lester is showing age at 33.  He was 19-5 in 2016 and pitched heroically in October but has been up and down this year: 11-7 with a 4.30 ERA.  He had a horrible August (7.85 ERA) when he went to the disabled list with arm fatigue.  The encouraging news is he has allowed just three runs in his past two starts.

Jake Arrieta, Cy Young winner of 2015, was in his best form in two years (18 runs allowed in 11 starts) when he suffered a “Grade 1” strain of his right hamstring on Sept. 4.  He hasn’t made a start since then but hopes to return to the rotation next week.

Kyle Hendricks pitched well Saturday, beating St. Louis 4-1, but it was just his seventh victory of the season.  He was on the DL with an inflamed middle finger, the cause of which mystified doctors.

Hendricks jokingly attributed the malady to “flipping the bird to people.  Maybe it’s too much driving in Chicago.”

Indeed, Chicagoans drive like Brazilians, no respect for traffic laws.  If you stop for a red light, the car behind you starts honking.  If you’re crossing a street, don’t believe the “walk” sign.  It should say, “Walk at your risk.”

But once out of their cars, the folks here tend to be convivial despite what you hear about the omnipresent gunfire.  The truth is that St. Louis, Baltimore, Detroit, New Orleans and Cleveland all have higher murder rates per capita than the Second City.  The gang warfare is mostly on the south side, far from the Friendly Confines.

At the moment, with temperatures in the 70s, there are few places more pleasant than Wrigleyville, where the mood is brightening with the Cubs sweeping St. Louis in a three-game weekend series, putting them 3 ½ up on the Brewers and 6 ahead of the Cards with 13 games left in the season.  The math suggests the division is settled.

On game days, Wrigley Field has electricity that extends into the adjoining streets, lined with sports bars and boutiques selling Cubs T-shirts, jerseys and caps.

On Sunday there were gray clouds overhead, and nervous scalpers selling tickets at a discount.  Ninety-dollar box seats were going for $50, and the prices kept dropping after the game began, though rain never occurred.

With tens of thousands converging on a small area of real estate, people with a message take advantage of the opportunity.  A half-dozen young women positioned themselves outside the Wrigley gates, holding placards protesting circumcision: “Boys are born perfect, too.  No alterations necessary.”

Nowhere does the mantra “Baseball is Life” ring more true than on the north side of Chicago.  Here the sport booms with young and old alike, and with women almost as much as men.

A woman in her 20s walking down the street talks into her cellphone several inches from her face: “Cubs score.  . . . Great!”

Meanwhile the Bears are playing, but not very well, and their game at Tampa Bay is not drawing intense scrutiny in the sports bars.  Here it’s all about baseball, and the Cubs, who can bash with anybody (210 homers) and have an impeccable bullpen (Wade Davis 19 for 19 on saves), may be peaking at the right time.

They got a boost from the return this week of Addison Russell, who missed a quarter of the season with a bruised foot.  The Cubs feel that with Russell at short and play-everywhere Javy Baez at second base they have baseball’s best middle infield.  They are correct.

There’s reason to hope that Arrieta, Hendricks and Lester can match up with anybody’s Big Three in the postseason, and that an adequate fourth starter will emerge from the volatile Lackey (11-11, 4.62 ERA) or the stamina-challenged Jose Quintana, who has reached the seventh inning only once in his past 11 starts.  He blew a 3-0 lead in the sixth inning of Sunday’s game against St. Louis.

Also contending for a postseason spin is Mike Montgomery (7-8, 3.47), who also maxes out at 6.0 innings.  He lasted exactly that long Tuesday night at Tampa Bay and bagged the victory – the Cubs’ seventh in a row.

It was a heartwarming return home by Cubs manager Joe Maddon.  He’s appreciated by the Rays for leading them to the World Series in 2008.  A video tribute to Maddon played on the right field scoreboard accompanied by the Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations.”  The tribute ended with, “Thanks for the memories, Joe.”

The question is whether the Cubs have enough of a staff to bring Maddon more special memories in the upcoming postseason.

It seems likely they fall short against the starting rotations of the LA Dodgers and/or Washington Nationals.  The Cubs probably will go back to doing what they usually do in October, which is not being in a World Series.  But of course, what makes Wrigleyville so heavenly is that these people are almost as happy when they lose as when they win.