The New York Mets and Chicago Cubs are playing NLCS Game 3 on Wednesday from Wrigley Field and the game is on TV from TBS and streaming online starting at 8 pm ET. The Mets are up in the series 2-0 and they have Jacob deGrom on the mound against Kyle Hendricks as the Cubs host a game at Wrigley this late in the season for the first time ever.
The Mets won the first two games off of strong starts from Matt Harvey and Noah Syndergaard and now they will send arguably their best pitcher to the hill in deGrom. The team has gotten some great play from Daniel Murphy, who hit another home run in Game 2 and now the team has the chance to take a 3-0 series lead. The Cubs are coming into the game confident and Joe Maddon said that he is not worried about the 2-0 deficit, even with the Mets beating Jake Arrieta and Jon Lester.
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The Mets lineup has Curtis Granderson leading off and Murphy will hit third behind David Wright, while Yoenis Cespedes is in the cleanup spot. Cespedes is playing center field and that puts Michael Conforto in left, while Lucas Duda will be at first base. Duda has had a tough postseason offensively, but Terry Collins feels that he can snap out of things and that he gives the team a solid presence at first base. Duda has two hits and 13 strikeouts in the playoffs and that could mean he is due.
Maddon has put out a crafty lineup that has Kyle Hendricks in the eighth spot and that puts Javier Baez ninth behind the pitcher. Jorge Soler is in right field for the game and the top of the lineup has Dexter Fowler, Kyle Schwarber and Kris Bryant hitting in the first three spots before Anthony Rizzo at cleanup. The Cubs are in a tough spot, as they do not want to go down 3-0 to the Mets in the NLCS. Sure, the Red Sox came back from 3-0 down on the Yankees to win in the ALCS, but with the history the Cubs have behind them, coming back from three games down will be very tough to handle.
The Cubs also have to fight back some math, as the Associated Press reports that teams that have won the first two games of a seven game series have been able to close it out 83 percent of the time. Nothing about the Cubs season has been standard, so chances are the team won't give up no matter what happens, but winning Game 3 would at least tip the scales slightly back for Chicago. The team has not been to a World Series in the modern era and they haven't won one in over 100 years, so really at this point, anything is possible for the Cubbies.
