It's no secret that I haven't thought Lester was an ace this season, but I honestly never expected him to pitch THIS badly. He got shellacked by the MFY today, a team that doesn't have anything to play for. And he's looked like a below average pitcher in September, like someone that's lost all confidence in his fastball. Anyone have any explanations?
It's horrible to say, but I almost home that he is injured in some way. At least that would be a good excuse for his huge amount of sucking this month, because the alternative is that his skills are deteriorating and that's too scary to contemplate.
At this rate, i'm not even sure why I'm rooting for the Sox to make the playoffs, because they'll just have a quick one-and-done before being put out of their misery. I actually pined for Daisuke the other day, which tells you about the awful place that the team has put me in.
It looks mental to me.
ReplyDeleteI could be imagining this, but I feel like I've seen several games where he will be sailing through, and one of the fielders will commit an error, or perhaps just not play hard enough, and after that his pitching falls apart. Certainly, that was the case this weekend. It's like he can't keep his cool once something has upset him.
That may be so, and I almost hope that it is, since that shit is fixable. (Look at how Salty overcame his throwing woes.) But what I see is all of those first inning pitches where he nibbles away with his curve ball or cutter while avoiding his fastball, his money pitch, the one that most pitchers would kill to have, and I see someone that doesn't have the same stuff he used to have.
ReplyDeleteThere's a lot of things that need to be fixed this off season. Hopefully Lester will be one of them.