http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/08/sports/baseball/chicago-cubs-san-francisco-giants-playoff-series.html 2016-10-08 06:52:30 Cubs’ Jon Lester Shuts Door on Giants, Who Once Came Knocking for Him Lester showed how important a 2014 recruiting battle turned out to be, leading Chicago to victory over San Francisco in the opener of their N.L. division series. === CHICAGO — Within a month of winning their third World Series in five years in 2014, the When Lester answered the door, at the head of the group was Buster Posey, the Giants’ franchise catcher, who had driven three hours from his home. “Buster put his hand out and said, ‘Hi, Jon, I want to be your catcher for the next six years,’” said Larry Baer, the Giants’ chief executive, who was among the team’s contingent along with Manager Bruce Bochy and Brian Sabean, the head of baseball operations. The Giants offered the most money and the richest pedigree of winning, but they could not match the relationship Lester had forged with Theo Epstein, the Cubs’ president, who had drafted him in Boston. On Friday, Lester showed how important that recruiting battle turned out to be, pitching the Cubs to a 1-0 victory over the San Francisco Giants in the opener of their National League division series. The only run the Cubs needed came late, when Javier Baez hit a one-out home run in the eighth inning, his high fly ball down the left-field line landing in the basket in front of the bleachers, just as outfielder Angel Pagan was settling underneath it. Until Baez’s home run, the Cubs had been baffled by Johnny Cueto, whose assortment of deliveries — from odd angles and accompanied by hesitations, slide steps and odd torques of his barrel-chested body — had kept their bats silent and the capacity crowd at Wrigley Field uneasy. As dominating as the Cubs have been through the course of their 103-victory season, these are the playoffs, where reminders of curses and past postseason heartbreak linger. With each scoreless inning, the Cubs began to look more and more like they did in last year’s N.L. Championship Series, when they scored eight runs total and were swept by the Mets. The game also served notice that the Giants have pitching depth that runs past Madison Bumgarner, their incomparable playoff ace. But when Baez’s hit, which came on a 3-2 fastball from Cueto, landed in the basket, the old stadium shook, and the crowd demanded a curtain call for Baez, who was in the lineup for his defense. It showed in the ninth inning when Baez fielded a bouncer up the middle from Hunter Pence and threw across his body in time for the final out. That play came after Posey had hit a two-out double off Aroldis Chapman, the Cubs’ closer. Chapman had come on in relief for Lester, who allowed five hits, walked none and struck out five, further burnishing his reputation as a big-game pitcher. The Impatience was not a problem for the Giants. They traveled from San Francisco to New York on Monday. After beating the Mets on Wednesday in the N.L. wild-card game, they flew to Chicago on Thursday, a travel day that was arduous enough that they did not work out at Wrigley Field. “Coming from New York to here, you would think we were heading to Europe between all the waiting in traffic and the waiting on the airplane, it was about six or seven hours,” Bochy said. “But it’s good to stay in the flow of things, it is, I’ll be honest. It doesn’t give you too much time to think about anything.” Cubs Manager Joe Maddon constructed a lineup that placed a priority on defense — using Baez, his best defender, at second base, the position where the Giants had hit the most ground balls this season. That meant shifting Ben Zobrist from second base to left field. But Baez bobbled a grounder up the middle from Pence to lead off the second, negating any chance that his strong throw would be in time. And Zobrist misplayed a two-out liner by Pagan in the fourth as it skittered past him for a double that placed runners at second and third. Lester neatly pitched around those misplays, both of which were scored hits, most notably retiring Brandon Crawford on a weak grounder to escape the fourth. In the playoffs, Cueto has been as unpredictable as his delivery. While pitching for Cincinnati in a wild-card game at Pittsburgh in 2013, he dropped the ball on the mound, which symbolized a jittery performance amid taunting chants of “Cue-to, Cue-to.” He also had a pair of rocky starts last year for Kansas City but redeemed himself with a sterling Game 5 win over Houston in the A.L. division series and by dominating the Mets with a complete-game Game 2 victory in the World Series. Cueto allowed two hits in each of those games. Until the eighth, Cueto kept the Cubs off balance and out of sorts, surviving his only real trouble spot in the fourth when Kris Bryant rattled a one-out double off the wall in left. Bryant took third on a grounder by Anthony Rizzo and was stranded there when second baseman Kelby Tomlinson stretched to snag Zobrist’s smash in the hole when the ball seemed certain to shoot past him. Center fielder Gorkys Hernandez also spared Cueto, making a sliding catch on the warning track in left-center, stealing a certain double from catcher David Ross in the third. Tomlinson took another hit away, diving onto the outfield grass to snag Rizzo’s grounder and then throwing him out. Tomlinson and Hernandez were in the lineup not for their defense, but because they were right-handed hitters to face the left-handed Lester.