CHICAGO — In a small cubby just to the right of Jon Lester’s uniform, there sits an autographed baseball. The signature on the ball faces the clubhouse, giving anyone who walks by Lester’s locker an opportunity to see the name of a person Lester admires greatly.

The ball isn’t signed by an actor or musician. It’s not signed by one of Lester’s teammates, either. It’s signed by Ashlyn Clark, a 17-year-old softball player who hit her first home run this summer while undergoing treatments for Stage 4 Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. After seeing Clark’s story on Twitter, Lester invited Clark and her family to Wrigley Field to enjoy a Chicago Cubs game. In his tweet, Lester asked Clark for her autograph. Cubs fans should be familiar with that story, as it garnered attention on social media.

That’s not typical for the 35-year-old Lester. He’s the Cubs’ nominee for the 2019 Roberto Clemente Award — which honors the player who combines strong play on the field with exceptional work in the community — but would rather operate behind the scenes, making him secretly one of the most charitable players in Major League Baseball.

“I don’t really care if anyone knows about it,” Lester told Yahoo Sports. “I do it because I want to help and I don’t need it out in the open.”

DOING IT ALL

Jacob deGrom (8-7, 2.56 ERA) tries to stop the Mets’ five-game skid when he faces Cubs lefty Jon Lester (10-9, 4.49) in a series finale between playoff hopefuls at Citi Field. Last year’s NL Cy Young Award winner, deGrom has pitched himself right back into contention this season and leads the league with 207 strikeouts. He fanned 13 over seven innings and homered last time out but the Mets lost 2-1 to Atlanta in 14 innings. The right-hander is the first pitcher since at least 1900 to homer and strike out 13 or more in the same game twice in one season.

BUMP IN THE ROAD

Major league ERA leader Hyun-Jin Ryu (12-4) looks to rebound from a rough outing when he pitches for the NL West-leading Dodgers at Arizona. The All-Star lefty gave up a grand slam to Didi Gregorius last Friday and was tagged by the New York Yankees for a career high-tying seven runs and nine hits in 4 1/3 innings — his shortest outing since June 28. It was Ryu’s second consecutive loss, and his ERA jumped from 1.64 to 2.00.