On Deck: NLCS, Games 1-2

On Deck will be here all season to provide you with everything you need to know (and a few things you don't) about every postseason series during the 2015 season. 

The Teams: The Cubs and Mets are both led by youth movements — Chicago in its lineup and New York with its amazingly young pitching staff. Now, we'll see what prevails.

Past 2015 Meetings: Remarkably, the Cubs won the season series 7-0, but the teams haven't played since the beginning of July, and the Mets made a couple of massive moves at the trade deadline.

Pitching Matchups: Saturday — Jon Lester (11-12, 3.34 ERA) vs. Matt Harvey (13-8, 2.71); Sunday — Jake Arrieta (22-6, 1.77) vs. TBA

What's Hot: In the NL Wild Card game win and the four NLDS games, rookie Kyle Schwarber hit .538 with a team-high three homers and five RBIs, also a team-high. Rookie Jorge Soler was also on fire at the plate, going 4-for-7 with six walks, a double and two home runs. Jake Arrieta is 2-0 this postseason, including a complete-game shutout in the NL Wild Card Game and an overall 2.45 ERA with 20 strikeouts and two walks in his 14 2/3 innings.

Mets veteran outfielder Curtis Granderson is batting .389 with five RBIs in his five NLDS games, while Daniel Murphy was the star of Game 5 and finished the series with a .333 batting average to go with a team-high three bombs and five RBIs. Closer Jeurys Familia has been a stud and got a six-out save to close out the Dodgers in Game 5. He has two saves and hasn't allowed a hit or walk in his 5 2/3 innings.

What's Not: Two of the Cubs' biggest sources of offense in the regular season, Anthony Rizzo and Kris Bryant, both hit below .200 in postseason leading up to this point but they did combine for three home runs.

Sports Connection

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