Lester not wild about his outing

Lack of control again a problem

TOKYO - It must be a bit frustrating. Or at least it appeared that way yesterday.

Standing in a room to the side of the dugout, Jon Lester seemed like a man with a 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 premature exits. And nothing changed yesterday. In his season debut, Lester blew through 83 pitches in four innings and ceded to the Red Sox 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 the return of a problem for Lester, there was another issue. That would be the cut fastball he left over the middle-inside portion of the plate to Emil Brown in the bottom of the third inning, which 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 batters in his four innings. And just eight of them got first-pitch strikes. Not exactly the percentage Lester was going for, though he did settle down for a 1-2-3 fourth.

As Lester pointed out the day before, Oakland is a team known for its patience at the plate, perhaps not a good fit for Lester, especially so early in the season. Still, this was not the Oakland of old. So it's something Lester needs to solve 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 threw a backdoor cutter that came right across the middle of the plate." Too hittable a pitch with two men on base, and A's starter Rich Harden putting on a show.

The good news for Lester is he gets another chance. Next week in Oakland, Calif., for the resumption of the 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.

"Obviously, it's not the way I wanted to start the year," Lester said, before grabbing his suitcase and heading for the bus to the airport. "I fell behind a lot of hitters early on and made 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 I 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.