CHICAGO -- Cubs lefty Jon Lester admitted that emotions were hard to shake when he took on Cleveland at Wrigley Field last month. The veteran was coming to terms with the idea that it may have been his final career outing in the Friendly Confines.

If the Cubs win Game 2 of the Wild Card Series against the Marlins on Friday, Lester will get to have at least one more chance to take the mound on the North Side. After more than 1,000 innings in a Cubs uniform, plus five postseason runs in six years, Lester is ready to take the ball for Game 3 on Saturday.

"It's a special place. It's a special place in my heart," Lester said of Wrigley Field. "It would be nice to finish up here on a good note."

Lester is the trusted arm for the potential Game 3 due to his wealth of October experience.

Over the course of Lester's career, the left-hander has pieced together a 2.51 ERA in 154 postseason innings. That includes a 2.44 ERA in 70 innings with Chicago, which has handed him the ball for six Game 1 starts in his 12 playoff outings dating back to 2015.

And just as Game 3 is currently uncertain, Lester is facing an uncertain future.

The lefty is in the final season of the six-year contract he signed with the Cubs ahead of the 2015 campaign. The Cubs are expected to pay a $10 million buyout for next season, rather than picking up Lester's $25 million option. Even so, Lester -- who has 193 career wins -- is holding out hope that he can chase win No. 200 with the Cubs in '21.

"If this is it here, this is it. I have to move on with it," Lester said. "I've definitely appreciated everything that this organization has done for me, and I hope it's not it. I hope we can figure something out for next year and these conversations are kind of null and void."

Cubs need to 'get back on' heaters
One of the issues experienced by the Cubs' offense this season showed up again as a glaring problem in Wednesday's 5-1 Game 1 loss to the Marlins.

Miami's Sandy Alcantara leaned heavily on his fastball and sent plenty of them into the strike zone. The Cubs went just 1-for-14 against Alcantara's four-seamer and they had a hard time getting much of anything going in the batter's box.

"He came at us with his fastball," Cubs outfielder Jason Heyward said. "He was able to throw strikes, mixing up offspeed when he needed to. Stayed off the barrel. ... We just missed some pitches [in Game 1]. That's a part of it."

Per Statcast, the Cubs hit .244 with a .420 slugging percentage against fastballs (all types) this season, which was below the MLB average (.267 BA and .459 SLG). The numbers for Chicago drop further against four-seamers (.229 average and .407 slugging percentage). On four-seamers in the zone, the Cubs hit just .253 with a .439 slugging percentage -- again, well below the MLB averages of .284 and .527, respectively.

"We do have to get back on the fastball," manager David Ross said. "We've got to get ourselves ready. I feel like we're at our best when we get our timing on the heater, get ready to hit."

Worth noting
• David Bote was in the Cubs' posted Game 2 lineup as the second baseman against Marlins righty Sixto Sánchez before Thursday's game was postponed. Expect that to remain the case on Friday. Over the 2019-20 seasons, Bote has hit better against righties (115 wRC+) than lefties (80 wRC+), and Sanchez has done worse against righties (.745 OPS) than lefties (.531 OPS) this year.

• The Cubs lost, 5-1, in Game 1 of the Wild Card Series, marking the fifth time in Chicago's last six postseason games that it has scored no more than one run. Chicago has scored 10 total runs in its past seven playoff games, dating back to 2017.

Quotable
"He's almost like an artist. He almost creates a painting every time he pitches. Like, maybe my slider's not working today, so we're going to go with my nasty split, or this pitch that I invented two weeks ago that we don't have a name for that he throws and makes people look stupid on. He's such a unique talent." --Lester, on Game 2 starter Yu Darvish