Cub Tracks smells it coming

Hey, I’m all in for meatloaf. Today the Cubs can get the gravy, in time for dinner. The magic number is 12. Details in the recap.

Love seeing how everyone pitches in. That mutual sense of purpose is what gets this team through. Jon Lester certainly doesn’t need a haircut, and he should get a Cy Young vote or two. Not much more than that, but he’s something special. So is this team, win or lose. There’s reaction to the Cubs win and some good news about returning players below. As always * means autoplay on, or annoying ads, or both (directions to remove for Firefox and Chrome).

Cubs News and Notes:

“We always make fun of the cliche hashtags they make up for the teams each year but ‘Everybody in’ is really fitting. Every single person who has been here has contributed on different days and come up big.” — Brandon Morrow

• Matthew Martell (MLB.com*): Jon Lester hurls gem as Cubs build on Central lead. “Jonny typically gets better when he smells it. He made some really big pitches when he had to,” remarked Joe Maddon.
• Jared Wyllys (NBC Sports Chicago*): Lester dominant in pitcher’s duel at Wrigley. “I’ll take the me over the younger me any day. Back then I didn’t have a rhyme or reason why things worked,” Lester said.
• Sahadev Sharma (The Athletic {$}): Aces high: Lester is leading a starting rotation that has saved the Cubs’ season. “The starters right now are really important to us,” Maddon said.

• Carrie Muskat (MLB.com*): Brandon Morrow nearing return to Cubs’ bullpen. “My mechanics have been free, I don’t feel like I’m holding back,” said Morrow.
• Jared Wyllys (NBC Sports Chicago*): Jorge De La Rosa the latest example of ‘Everybody In’. “When the Cubs chose “Everybody In” for 2018, they probably weren’t intending it to be quite so prescient.” Sahadev Sharma {$} adds on. Paul Sullivan {$} concurs.
• Barry Rozner (Daily Herald {$}): Cubs’ Maddon finding relief in different ways. “This is not the perfect spot to be with two weeks remaining before the postseason begins, but this is where the Cubs find themselves.”
• Evan Altman (Cubs Insider): After dominating at every level, Cubs RP Prospect Dakota Mekkes ready to make push for bigs. “I’m going to try and do everything I can to come into camp ready and make a push for the bigs out of camp,” Mekkes said. “So we’ll see what happens there.”
• Evan Altman (Cubs Insider): What’s wrong whiff Daniel Murphy? “He has registered only one hit in his last 20 at-bats and has gone 10-for-58 (.172) since beginning his Cubs tenure with an 11-for-27 (.407) streak.”
• Sean Sears (NBC Sports Chicago*): Kyle Schwarber and Jason Heyward could be ready to contribute this weekend. “...Heyward and Schwarber returning to the lineup at the very least gives the Cubs their starting corner outfielders back as well as depth for the final push for the postseason.”

Food for Thought:

• Adam Mann (Science): Remote solar observatory remains closed after mysterious evacuation. “Nobody is quite sure what’s going on at the Sunspot Solar Observatory in New Mexico...”

• Elizabeth Pannisi (Science): Researchers reboot ambitious effort to sequence all vertebrate genomes, but challenges loom. “Funding remains an obstacle.”