64 replies to this topic

[MyDaughterLovesTomGordon]

81 of his pitches were four-seamers and cutters, and 61 were four seamers. That's what I call getting back to basics. All the big strikeout pitchers always talk about establishing the fastball command above all else and letting the rest follow.

This is a pretty decent-looking donut hole:



Definitely something to build on.

[Al Zarilla]

“I was just getting the ball down, locating,’’ Lester (5-8) said. “All the things I’ve been preaching all along. It carried through the whole game.”

“This was huge,’’ a relieved Lester said. “I threw the ball well. They only had four hits and a fly ball to right. You’ve got to look at it objectively. (Without Nix’) fly ball (homer) to right, they squeezed out a run and got one other and it’s 6-2 as opposed to 6-4.”

I'm glad Lester is happy but he still had an ERA of 6 for the game. Sure, cheap HR but that's part of pitching and the MFY pitchers have to deal with the short porch in right all the time. Let's see next game what he does.

[roundegotrip]

He also maintained his velocity through 100 pitches. Very encouraging.

Check out the spin graphs for his last three starts. Whatever mechanical tweaks they made certainly had an effect on the ball coming out of his hand.

7/17:



7/22:



Last night:

[Jnai]

81 of his pitches were four-seamers and cutters, and 61 were four seamers.

Ignore the MLBAM classifications for Lester this year. They are horrible.

[knucklecup]

What do we make of tonight's performance?

[SoxScout]

I don't know how much this fluctuates, but it seemed like his mentality tonight was "fuck it, lets see if they can hit my stuff." Lead to 0 walks and a bunch of pitches over the heart of the plate.

[The Gray Eagle]

The third run was Morneau doubling on a pitch that was on the high and away corner, a really nice piece of hitting on a good pitch, followed by a base hit on a pitch a foot outside. There really isn't much a pitcher can do about that earned run. The second hit especially was ridiculous.

The only thing I could think of from tonight was maybe he needs to pitch inside more aggressively and move some people off the plate. The hitters seemed to be reaching outside pitches which they shouldn't.

He actually looked better tonight than he has in a Fenway game in quite a while. He's been putrid at home all year. But the offense got shut out at home by Menudo in an important game for us, a meaningless game for them. There's a lot going on with this team that doesn't make much sense from the outside.

[Smiling Joe Hesketh]

5-10 with a 5.36 ERA. WHIP way up, hit rate way up, K rate down. Leading the league in earned runs allowed. Awful demeanor on the mound, screaming at umps, loss of focus, clear frustration with him.

Time to shut him down for 10 days to work on his mechanics. He's not right, he's killing the club, and the team's going nowhere this year anyway. This can't continue.

[Red(s)HawksFan]

5-10 with a 5.36 ERA. WHIP way up, hit rate way up, K rate down. Leading the league in earned runs allowed. Awful demeanor on the mound, screaming at umps, loss of focus, clear frustration with him.

Time to shut him down for 10 days to work on his mechanics. He's not right, he's killing the club, and the team's going nowhere this year anyway. This can't continue.

I'm not sure it's a mechanical issue so much as a between the ears issue. He looked great through five last night. He looked fine in his previous start as well (3R in 8 innings) but got zero run support. It seems on the surface that whatever mechanical issues he may have had have been worked out for the most part. I don't think a shut down is necessary. There's no harm in continuing to send him out there if he's not injured, even if the results are uneven, especially if the team isn't going anywhere this season anyway. It's not as though there's a hot prospect waiting for his spot in the rotation or anything.

It wasn't until he started getting squeezed last night (or he thought he was getting squeezed) in the 6th that he unraveled. And it was far from the first time that a questionable call or two has sent him into a downward spiral. What he needs is for someone to kick him in the ass and tell him to cut the crap and just pitch. Good pitchers don't let a bad call be an excuse, they just make the next pitch better than the last. Lester is not doing that.

[MyDaughterLovesTomGordon]

I agree with Red, above. To say Lester isn't making progress is a little disingenuous. 2 hits through the first 16 batters ain't bad. And if that hit and run isn't executed (Washington deserves some credit there), Lester has a double-play ball that likely gets him out of the seventh unscathed.

What's really troublesome is the ranting to the umpire as he walks off the field in the sixth. Dude looked unhinged. And the fact is, he's wrong. They're not good pitches, according to the computers. A robot umpire calls them balls. Maybe he thinks he's earned some kind of outside corner extension as a veteran, but maybe someone should explain to him that pitchers with 5+ ERAs don't get the benefit of the doubt.

Seriously, look at the sixth:



Anyone see where Lester is getting robbed? I don't. Is McClure sitting down with Lester and showing him this after the game and telling him to shut his mouth? He should be.

And look at the hits. All right down the middle, basically. Bad pitches result in hits. But he also got five swinging strikes in the inning. He hit 95 on his 81st pitch. That shows he's making good pitches, too, and that his velocity might be coming around again. I think at this point it's fine tuning he needs to be doing, and on a major league mound, not in side sessions.

It's exactly your point, SJH - the season is spent. Let's let Lester figure it out on the mound and hope that by season's end he's found something again - whether it be a mechanical issue, a fire in his belly, or a sense of peace with what the umpires are giving him.

[kieckeredinthehead]

You must have missed the big, capital letters over that strikezone map screaming "OUTDATED." He threw in a location that pitchers expect to get strikes on left-handed hitters:

[dbn]

I missed the game today but see 12 SO in 6IP. How did he look?

[mfried]

I missed the game today but see 12 SO in 6IP. How did he look?

He looked good. First two innings absurdly high pitch count, but settled. Indians' lineup has two respectable hitters: Cabrera and Choo. He handled them well. Everyone else offered pretty much no resistance.

[Savin Hillbilly]

Can you say "donut hole"? I thought you could:



Almost more impressive than the size of the donut hole is the amount of chasing he was able to induce--look at all those orange squares (swinging strikes) way off the plate. That could say as much about the Cleveland hitters as about Lester's stuff, but either way, he was fooling people.

He was using the cutter a lot. The PitchFX classification table says he threw just 19 cutters, but the charts cast doubt on that:



That well-defined cluster in the upper middle sure looks like cutters, and I count at least 30, probably 36-38 of them, depending on where you see the border of the cluster.

[The Gray Eagle]

So Lester is the same pitcher he's always been on the road this year, or maybe even better than ever: 5-2, 2.99 ERA after today.

At Fenway, he is 2011 John Lackey, or maybe even worse than that: 2-8, 6.83 ERA.

BAA going in to today: road .220, home .317.

So what the hell is going on when he pitches at Fenway??? Maybe it's just randomness, but if so it seems extremely weird that he is he a legit ace on the road but the worst pitcher in baseball at home.

Fenway has a bigtime park factor this year, but Lester's been so bad there that he might be seriously influencing it by himself.

Lester, if your wife is cooking for you when you are in Boston, it's time to hire a chef. If you're renting an apartment in Boston, then go buy a house. If you're living in a house, sell it and buy an apartment. If Beckett and Lackey are talking you into hitting up the bars in Boston, tell them to fuck off. (Actually you should probably tell them to fuck off just in general anyway.) Whatever you're doing in area code 617, change it up, because it isn't working.