During manager Terry Collins meeting with the press yesterday he did not give a ringing endorsement to start slumping first basemen, Lucas Duda in game three of the NLCS. In the postseason thus far Duda is 2-for-21 with 2 walks and 13 strikeout’s. It is worth noting that the Chicago Cubs will be sending RHP Kyle Hendricks, who Duda is 2-for-4 with a home-run and 2 walks in six appearances against him.
“I haven’t written the lineup yet for tomorrow,” Collins stated Monday afternoon. “I haven’t even visited it. I haven’t looked. We just found out yesterday afternoon it was going to be Hendricks, and I haven’t even looked at what the fit’s going to be.”
It is thought that if Duda does not start, Daniel Murphy would slide to first, while Kelly Johnson could slot into second for his first start of the post-season.
On the flip side of the NLCS, Chicago Cubs manager Joe Maddon has no intention of pushing Jon Lester to pitch game four of the series, even with his team down. Madden will look to start Jason Hammel instead as planned.
“We’re just going to play it straight as of right now,” Maddon said. “We haven’t thought about changing any of that. You have to win ‘X’ number of games to get there, and two, to push Jon to that point, I don’t think we want to do that. We refrained from doing that in the previous round and it played out pretty well. We’re going to do it again.”
Lester who has been a pretty good post-season pitcher has an overall record of 6-6 with a 2.85 ERA. In his start against the Mets though, he did not have his best stuff and the Metropolitans took advantage. In game one Lester pitched 6.2 innings while giving up four runs, one walk and striking out five.
The Mets and Cubs continue the NLCS tonight at Wrigley Field with a 2-0 lead. First pitch is scheduled for 8:07 PM EST.
