Familiar line for Lester -- too many pitches
TOKYO—Must be a bit frustrating. Or, at least, it appeared that way today.
Standing in a room, off to the side of the dugout, Jon Lester seemed like a man with a small problem. He knows what's wrong. He just doesn't know how to fix it.
Since Lester arrived in the major leagues, he has struggled with his pitch count. He throws too many pitches, too early in games, leading to early exits. Good stuff, sometimes even great stuff, gets lost among the deep counts and the long innings and the exits after five frames. And nothing changed today, other than the country, as in his season debut, Lester blew through 83 pitches in four innings and ceded the rest of the game to the bullpen in a 5-1 loss to Oakland.
"The game changes when you get ahead of hitters," Lester said. "So if you do that, then it doesn't matter if it's your first start in spring training or if it's the last start in the season. You've got to get ahead of hitters early. If you do that, then you can dictate what you want to do. When you're behind guys, they dictate what they want to do. They can take pitches and swing at pitches they want to swing at, instead of the ones you want them to swing at."
But, while his high pitch count marked a return problem for Lester against the A's, there was another issue. That would be the backdoor cutter that he left on the middle-inside portion of the plate to Emil Brown, the cutter that Brown deposited in the left-field stands for a three-run home run.
"It was a lot of pitches," manager Terry Francona said. "I think what happened with Jon was sometimes he doesn't allow himself to be quite in the groove that his stuff should allow. He exhibited great stuff, but we'll try to pick up the pace a little bit, get him working quicker, and get him into a rhythm. When he gets into that rhythm and when he's attacking the strike zone, he's got a lot of good weapons to get hitters out with."
Just 47 of Lester's 83 pitches went for strikes, as he faced 20 hitters in his four innings of work. And just eight of them got first-pitch strikes. Not exactly the percentage Lester was going for, though he did settle down into a 1-2-3 fourth inning before departing.
As Lester himself pointed out the day before, Oakland is a team known particularly for its patience at the plate, perhaps not a good fit for Lester, especially coming so early in the season. Still, this team was not the Oakland of old. And it's something that Lester needs to solve, at least if he wants his performances to warrant the No. 3 spot in the rotation.
Despite his struggles with efficiency and command, Lester "had good stuff," Francona said. "He had a two seamer on both sides of the plate. He threw all his pitches, he worked himself into some deeper counts, then he a backdoor cutter that came right across the middle of the plate."
Too much, with two men on base, and Oakland pitcher Rich Harden putting on a show.
The good news, for Lester, is that he gets another chance. Next week, back in Oakland for the resumption of the regular season, he gets to try again, try to get ahead of hitters, try to "come back and redeem myself."
As for that, getting ahead of hitters would certainly be a big step. Not just in trying to win his second start of the season, but in trying to make the next step in his career.
"Obviously it's not the way I wanted to start the year," Lester said, before grabbing his suitcase and heading out to the team bus to the airport to fly back to the United States. "I fell behind a lot of hitters early on and one mistake and I guess that really sums up the game. It was a kind of a battle from the beginning. It wasn't just one individual pitch that put me in that situation. I guess I can take some positives out of it, the last inning threw the ball well, felt like I started to fall into a rhythm a little bit.
"But once again, pitch count."
Amalie Benjamin can be reached at abenjamin@globe.com.
