The Chicago Cubs will try to get back to their winning ways when they host the Miami Marlins on Tuesday night.
The Cubs won seven in a row before falling short 6-5 against the Marlins on Monday night in the opener of a four-game series. The late loss disrupted a terrific spell for Chicago, which had won 16 of 20 following a 3-8 start to the season.
Veteran starter Cole Hamels insisted that one loss should not — and will not — derail the Cubs’ progress. Hamels was lined up to earn the victory but wound up with a no-decision after Pedro Strop blew a ninth-inning lead.
“It’s still that part of the season where it can come and go, and you just have to manage,” Hamels told reporters after Monday’s game. “It’s just a matter of being out there and executing pitches and keeping your team within reason in the game.”
The Cubs have done that more times than not as they have built a 10-5 home record on the season.
Regardless of the result in the series opener against Miami, Cubs manager Joe Maddon said he was happy with how quickly his team has rebounded from an ugly start to the season.
“I think I talked about (a standings gain of) one game a week early on, which is normally the way you do it,” Maddon said to reporters this week. “You normally don’t have this quick rebound under these circumstances. But everything came together for us rather quickly, and we played a lot better, pitching-wise.
“Whenever I have been with a team that has gotten in a hole, I’ve always thought about one game a week, try to pick up one a week, and then you get back to normalcy. But it’s incredible how quickly we’ve been able to get our feet back on the ground.”
The Marlins, meanwhile, snapped a three-game losing streak Monday and earned just their second victory in nine games.
“It’s good,” Marlins manager Don Mattingly said postgame, according to the Miami Herald. “I know how it looks, when you’re … not winning and it looks like you’re not playing with energy or effort, but these guys have been working and continuing forward. Everyone did a nice job tonight.”
Left-hander Caleb Smith (3-0, 2.00 ERA) will attempt to maintain Miami’s success in his seventh start of the season. Smith has walked nine and struck out 45 in 36 innings.
In his lone career start against the Cubs, Smith allowed one run on four hits in 5 1/3 innings in a no-decision on March 30, 2018. He walked three and fanned eight.
Starlin Castro will do his best to provide Smith with run support after driving in his 10th run of the season in the series opener against his former team. Five other Marlins players drove in one run apiece, including Rosell Herrera, Miguel Rojas and Martin Prado, who drove in one run apiece during a comeback in the ninth inning.
The Cubs will counter with veteran left-hander Jon Lester (2-1, 1.73 ERA). Lester has walked seven and struck out 27 in 26 innings this season, in which he missed two weeks due to a hamstring injury.
In six career starts against the Marlins, Lester is 1-2 with a 5.01 ERA. He has walked 11 and struck out 24 in 32 1/3 innings.