| 21 May 2009
I posted this info over at Over The Monster (highly recommended BTW) and with Lester on the hill tonight, I thought I run it by you guys as well.
In 2007, for whatever reason (inexperience, recovering from cancer, etc.) Jon Lester struggled to get through the 6th inning. He admitted later that he was thinking too much and his pace was too slow...the result was a 4-0 record, but with 8 NDs.
In 2008, with a few added pounds of
muscle and a full spring training under his belt, Lester pitched with confidence and purpose and the result was a Cy Young caliber season: 16-6 with a 3.21 ERA.
Some would argue that batters simply struggled against Lester due to lack of scouting on the young lefty, but Lester's goal in 2008 was to trust his abilities and pick up the pace. He did... and the it made a world of difference.
In 2008 Lester averaged 5.7 innings per start and made it into the 6th inning just four times in 11 starts (36%). In 2008, he went 6+ in 20 of his 33 starts (60%) and averaged 6.36 IP/GS... enabling him to win 16 games on the season.
For good reason Red Sox Nation expected another, if not better, performance from Lester in 2009, but so far he has looked more like the 2007 version. Though eight starts, Lester has averaged 5.8 innings and has only reached the 6th inning twice... not coincidentally, his two wins in 2009 came from those two games.
Lester spent the spring working on a new pitch to help keep batter on their toes - knowing that he was no longer an "unknown" in the league. Maybe he's trying to hard to mix up his pitches... or maybe the hitters have found a weakness or a tell in his delivery... or maybe he's simply overthinking things again.
Bottom Line: The strikeouts are still there (6.75 per GS) but he's already given up 10 homers (4 shy of his season total for '08 and he fallen into a bad habit of imploding in the 5th or 6th inning... just like he did in 2007.
On reader added some interesting info about Lester's heavy workload in 2008:
This is from Baseball Prospectus about Lester:
http://baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=8906"Like Hamels, Lester may be feeling the effects of a career-high workload (237 innings) and a shorter than usual recovery time. He's averaging less than six innings per start, and his splits show that he's been extremely vulnerable after the fourth inning, yielding a .362/.385/.662 line to hitters in the fifth through seventh innings. Looking at it from a slightly different vantage, batters are hitting .338/.348/.646 when facing him for the third time in a game; he's yielding a homer for every 11 PA in those situations, compared to one every 36.3 in the first two go-rounds"
Joe Haggerty has a very interesting take on Lester's struggles:
http://hackswithhaggs.com/2009/05/17/lester-is-paying-the-price-now-for-a-brilliant-2008-season.aspx?ref=rss"The Red Sox should have predicted - and most likely did given their effort to collect as many starting rotation arms as possible this winter - exactly what's happening to an exasperated Jon Lester thus far this season...
This season's numbers scream out a 2008 hangover for Lester...Lester's statistics spell out a pitcher that's experiencing serious difficulty maintaining the pitch-to-pitch consistency he had for nearly the entire wire-to-wire run in 2008.
Dig deeper and the picture becomes even clearer that Lester is experiencing fatigue-related issues this season.
Once Lester has crossed past the pitch No. 76 threshold in each of his eight starts, his numbers begin to drop precipitously. The big southpaw has a 7.31 ERA and has allowed 27 hits and seven home runs in only 16 innings pitched after he's crossed over the 75th pitch of an outing this season.
Another potential sign of fatigue is the difficulty that Lester seems to have in bringing his best stuff with him right out of the chute in the first inning. During his first 15 pitches of the game, Lester is getting banged around to the tune of a 15.88 ERA in 5 1/3 innings with seven hits and 10 runs allowed.
From there Lester loosens up and has a 3.85 ERA on pitches 16-75 and looks much more like the bright young left-handed starter that seemingly cranked out quality starts last summer with an almost effortless-looking style.
Lester is having trouble getting loose in the first inning and is really having serious technical difficulties finishing off hitters in the final innings of his starts."
The 54 K's in 8 starts tells me he can locate when he wants to. The radar gun tells me that he can still hit 95 in the 5th, so his arm appears to be healthy. But the HRs tell me that he's making poor decisions... or that he's not locating in certain situations.
Bottom Line: I think Lester has run into some bad luck both on the mound and with the defense behind him, but he has yet to show signs of 7-inning dominance like he did through much of 2008. Like Big Papi... I think his struggles might be in his head right now. Lester needs to trust his ability and keep the pace up on the mound and he'll be fine.
Photo: Yahoo! Sports
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