Mark down Friday, Oct. 6: The Chicago Cubs come to the District to open the National League Division Series against the Washington Nationals.
Chicago clinched its second consecutive division title by beating the St. Louis Cardinals on Wednesday night. That locked the Cubs into the NLDS with the Nationals.
“My thoughts are to finish the season strong, then to worry about Chicago,” Nationals manager Dusty Baker said after falling by a 7-5 margin to the Philadelphia Phillies. “We want to finish strong and to go into the new season with some momentum.”
The Cubs were concerned with celebrating.
“I think we’re going to have a good time tonight,” starter John Lackey said. “I don’t really care about the Nationals.”
A few opening notes. We’ll get into this much more in the days ahead:
— One of the crucial decisions for Baker will be when to play Jayson Werth, Howie Kendrick and Adam Lind. Werth has been a mess at the plate for more than a month, but holds a .326 career average against pitchers on the Cubs’ staff he has faced. Much of that work came against Lackey. Werth is 7-for-18 career against Lackey. Lind has hit .400 against Lackey in 45 career at-bats since the two saw each other often in the American League. That information may be moot since Lackey is not a lock for the Cubs’ rotation.
— The Nationals rotation is clear: Max Scherzer, Stephen Strasburg, Gio Gonzalez and Tanner Roark. Cubs manager Joe Maddon has a tricky decision in front of him after Jon Lester and Jake Arrieta. He will have to pick two pitchers from left-handed Jose Quintana and two right-handers, Kyle Hendricks and Lackey.
— When discussing the postseason roster the past few weeks, Baker has often mentioned how much the opponent will influence his decisions when assembling the bullpen. The tricky part with Chicago is that its splits against left-handed and right-handed pitching are almost identical; the Cubs’ OPS vs. lefties coming into Wednesday was .781, vs. righties .778. That leaves Baker a chance to filter down to singular matchups.
— Scherzer owns the Cubs’ best hitter, Kris Bryant. Bryant is 1-for-10 career against Scherzer with seven strikeouts.
— Lester and the Cubs have a similar situation against Bryce Harper. Harper is 1-for-7 with five strikeouts against Lester. A wrinkle is that Matt Wieters has always hit Lester well: .314 in 51 at-bats.
— The Nationals are 4-3 vs. the Cubs this season, despite outscoring them, 39-28.
Game times will be announced at a later date. Here’s the schedule:
Game 1: Oct. 6 at Washington
Game 2: Oct. 7 at Washington
Game 3: Oct. 9 at Chicago
Game 4: Oct. 10 at Chicago, if necessary
Game 5: Oct. 12 at Washington, if necessary
— The Associated Press contributed to this report.
• Todd Dybas can be reached at tdybas@washingtontimes.com.
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