Can Vegas hypnotist cure Cubs pitcher’s curse?

Because Memorial Day has come and gone and the Cubs still are in the hunt for one of the dozen or so wild-card berths — and because I’ve lived 58 years without witnessing the Chicago National League ballclub having played in the World Series — I’ve been having this recurring nightmare.

It starts with Jon Lester trying to pick a guy off first base, only he throws the ball over Anthony Rizzo’s head. The ball caroms off the tarp and comes to rest in the visitors bullpen.

Then the next guy bunts, and instead of letting Kris Bryant field it, Lester does, and he just stands there, paralyzed, holding the ball. And guys just keep circling the bases with their fists in the air, the way that damn Steve Garvey did after he hit the home run off Lee Smith.

So while the team is still five games over .500, I would like to arrange a meeting between the Cubs’ high-priced left-hander, who for some reason cannot throw the ball to first base, and Just!n Tranz, a comedy hypnotist who is headlining a show at The Tommy Wind Theater on the Strip next to the MGM Grand.

I met Tranz at a Starbucks on East Flamingo on Monday morning. I showed him the video of Lester trying to pick the Reds’ Zack Cozart off first base in April. It was the first time Lester had thrown to first in two years.

Remember when Carl Lewis tried to throw out the first pitch at a Mariners game? Well, it didn’t look quite that bad, or as bad as when Carly Rae Jepsen threw out the first pitch at a Rays game down in Florida a couple of seasons ago.

But it still was pretty awful.

Anthony Rizzo didn’t even try to catch it. He might have yelled “Call me maybe” and then he put his head down and started running in the direction of the Dan Ryan Expressway, which is roughly where Lester’s errant toss landed.

Jorge Soler, the Cubs’ right fielder, got to the ball first. He threw out Cozart at third base; it wasn’t close. Soler has a hose. But you can’t expect he’ll be there to bail out Lester every time, because sometimes the outfielders are aligned in one of those crazy shifts.

This is why Jon Lester should meet with Just!n Tranz.

Tranz does sports hypnotism on the side. A few years back he hypnotized Talmadge “Two Guns” Griffis into believing he was going to knock out his opponent in 20 seconds. Come fight night, it took about 90 seconds. Boxrec.com even verified it.

Tranz now is working with Robert Sacre of the Lakers. He is trying to hypnotize the former Gonzaga big man into believing he can be a better rebounder.

Sacre was skeptical, Tranz said. He brought his tattoo artist and his girlfriend to the session, and his girlfriend brought somebody, too.

In less time than it would take Draymond Green to shove Sacre out of the way for an easy put-back, Tranz said he had the big guy on the floor, stone-cold hypnotized. The tattoo artist seemed sort of mystified, too.

So, I showed Tranz the video of Jon Lester trying to pick Zack Cozart off first base.

He had me play it back. Yeah, that Jorge Soler really does have a hell of a throwing arm. Then he said he could help Lester get over whatever is causing the mental block of throwing to first base, or the other bases.

“I would love to work with him,” Tranz said. “I know I could figure out something. I would simply get him to believe he was throwing to home base.”

First, they would have to get over Tranz’s lack of baseball terminology. Moving on:

“There’s a reason why he can’t (throw to first base). He doesn’t know what that reason is. But there was a first time it happened. He’s possibly forgotten it, doesn’t know it — he could have been a high school player.

“I would regress him to the first time that it happened. Him going back to the first time will catapult him to where he’s ‘Lemme let that go.’ ”

Tranz, who is featured in commercials for the IKEA furniture retail chain, said he also could also hypnotize UNLV basketball players into becoming better free-throw shooters, and even into passing the ball to an open teammate.

He said he would be willing to help all kinds of local athletes overcome all kinds of mental blocks, and that he probably would charge a lot less than a certified sports psychologist would.

I told him I didn’t really believe in hypnotism. Neither did Crash Davis in “Bull Durham.” Crash mostly believed in the small of Susan Sarandon’s back, and some other things.

The Cubs once had this pitcher named Bill Faul, who wore No. 13 and believed in self-hypnosis. Faul’s career record was 12-16 with a 4.72 ERA. He apparently had hypnotized himself into believing the power alleys in Wrigley Field were 468 feet from home plate, instead of 368.

Just!n Tranz made his eyes real big and he looked into mine, and then I started ... feeling ... very ... sleepy. It seemed the mind-numbing music of unfamiliar singer-songwriters was playing in the background on a continuous loop.

I was slowly losing touch with reality.

But it should be pointed out this is how I always feel when I’m in Starbucks before the Frappucino kicks in.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow him on Twitter: @ronkantowski.