Jon Lester

  J. Lester and the Sox traveled to Baltimore last night to play the Orioles in what would be the Lester show. He has been amazing in his last 6 starts he hasn't giving up no more than 3 runs and has 4 wins and 48 strikeouts, Awesome!

Continue reading "Lester Amazing Again"

Boston Red Sox; Inter-league Play Begins with the Red Sox heading to Philly to play World Champion Philadelphia Phillies!

With last years champs in town facing what I believe to be this year's champs (the Red Sox) I think we should have a good series and a good game and last night we had a battle. Even though the Sox are 11-2 versus the Philly’s since 2005!

Continue reading "Lester Strikes Out 11 and Doesn't ..."

Lester was awesome and pitched like Beckett the other night, LIGHTS OUT!! Last night it was Texas at Fenway and Lester came out and took out the Rangers, hittless for 7 innings.  I thought he was going to get a no-hitter after the 6th inning--Lester was painting the corners and striking people out left and right, ending with 11 strikeouts. he was on fire!

Continue reading "Boston Red Sox: Another Amazing Start by Lester"

As I watched Jacoby Ellsbury steal home against the Yankees Sunday night, I thought to myself: "This pretty much sums it up." An aging Andy Pettitte forgets to deliver from the stretch, letting a youthful Ellsbury elude another future Bingo regular, Jorge Posada's, tag at the plate. Would Justin Masterson have made the same error? The two ballclubs could not be headed in more opposite directions. Every year, the Red Sox seem to call up another hyped prospect, while the Yanks continue to overpay for limited talent, and shun their farm system.

Continue reading "Red Sox continue to steal away Yanks' future"

om the second game against the Rays.  It’s lefty versus lefty tonight at the Fens!  Jon Lester will take the mound and challenge Scott Kazmir to an old fashioned pitchers duel - hopefully.  Rocco will get the start in right and let Drew take the night off from facing the lefty.  I am psyched to see Rocco!  

Continue reading "Play Ball!!!"

A starting rotation of Josh Beckett, Jon Lester, Dice-K and Smoltz possesses a career 27-9 postseason record. It’s an understatement to say the group delivers when it counts. The Twins and Angels do not have the lineups, and New York will undoubtedly choke. Don’t think CC Sabathia (2-3, 7.92 ERA career in the playoffs) will change that recent trend. AL Wild Card: New York Yankees; AL Champion: Boston Red Sox

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be interesting as we find out more. 

Lester here for another five – It seems as though Jon Lester will be pitching, here in Boston, for a few more years anyway.  Yahoo! Sports had reported that Lester and the Red Sox had agreed to a 5-year contract extension worth $30 million and a $13 million team option for 2014.  An announcement is expected to be made on Sunday.  Another great move by Theo!! 

Continue reading "A Few Sox Saturday Updates"

g in 2001 with Hideo Nomo, followed by Derek Lowe in 2002, Clay Buchholz in 2007, and most recently Jon Lester in 2008.  None of those guys are slouches by any measure, however they aren't the most elite pitchers of their era yet either (can't pass judgement on Buchholz or Lester especially as of yet).  And yet, all of these guys have done what some astonishingly elite names such as Roger Clemens, Curt Schilling (who came within one strike of a perfect game with Varitek behind the plate in 2007), Pedro Martinez have never been able to do in some the most illustrious and impressive pitching careers that Major League baseball has ever seen.  With Varitek behind the plate and calling the game, good pitchers become great, and great pitchers can become legendary.  This is not to say that the Red Sox Captain deserves all the credit for his pitchers' success, but it is undeniable that he has a huge impact on the game and the way his pitchers perform.

Continue reading "Rightful Place"

Classic moment.

Two other quick points:
1) Jon Lester is officially one of the 10 best pitchers in baseball. Period. Honestly, he may be Top 5, but I don't feel like thinking up a list right now. In reference to the fact that the Sox may have tossed him into a deal for Johan Santana in the off-season, Tom Caron noted in the postgame that you wouldn't trade Lester straight-up for Santana right now. And he's right. There's not a human on the planet that can hit Lester the way he's throwing right now. He climbed from feel-good story to emerging star during the regular season, but in two games against the Angels he became an ace. And that's final. As someone who completely underestimated the young lefty, I'll be the first to admit it. If I had to pick someone to pitch Game 7 of the World Series right now, it'd be

Continue reading "Feeling Fenway"

of dominance on a baseball diamond.

Squarely in the center of tonight’s game was Jon Lester.  The lefty from Tacoma (something I like came from Tacoma?) was dominating, pitching seven strong while striking out seven and surrendering only an unearned run in the third.  Seemingly getting better as the game went on, Lester was working both sides of home plate with all of his pitches, showing great command in addition to overpowering velocity and movement on his fastball. 

Continue reading "Same as it Ever Was"

Now, instead, they get Jon Lester.

Don't get me wrong, I love Lester. In fact, based solely on the merits of his performance this season, he was probably the best pitcher in the rotation. But he's still an unproven commodity in the playoffs, and that brings me to my real second thought: His performance in Game 4 of the World Series last year is hugely overrated.

Continue reading "After my bedtime"

beating Brett Favre in the most hyped Week 2 game in years around these parts on Sunday afternoon, Jon Lester continued his march toward becoming a truly elite pitcher by outdueling a man largely respected as perhaps the best hurler in the AL, in a game the Sox needed to have. Any question marks that surrounded Lester at the All-Star break have been officially converted into exclamation points. In fact, pencil him in for Game 2 right now - it doesn't matter who we are playing or what Daisuke's record ends up being ... Lester's earned the spot right behind Beckett in the playoff rotation.

Continue reading "Q & A ... well, at least some Qs"

Red Sox - Kevin Youkilis, Dustin Pedroia, Jacoby Ellsbury, Jonathan Papelbon, Manny Delcarmen, Jon Lester (and you could throw in Jed Lowrie and Justin Masterson) - a list, by the way, that includes two MVP candidates (Youk and Pedroia), the best closer in baseball (sorry Mariano "Skeleton Face" Rivera) and a potential future Cy Young winner (Lester).

Continue reading "The Tables Have Turned"

If you told me the following facts before the season began - that Jon Lester would be the Red Sox' best pitcher, that the starting staff would receive critical contributions from Bartolo Colon and Paul Byrd (potentially two of the ugliest pitchers ever to don a Sox uniform, as an aside), that Jed Lowrie would have more RBI than Julio Lugo, that Manny would take his Manny show to the left coast, that Jason Varitek would be struggling to hit .220, that Kevin Youkilis would be the team's most feared power hitter, and that David Ortiz would miss the bulk of the first half with an injury - I'd probably have predicted that the Sox would finish fourth in the American League East.

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Not right now. That honor, my friends, goes to Jon Lester, a 24-year old kid who hasn't had to buy his first razor yet.

ESPN gets the award for most tantalizing graphic (though they admittedly stole all the info from some Boston blog) about Lester's life thus far during Sunday's broadcast. It detailed how, at the ripe old age of 24, he'd already defeated cancer, thrown a no-hitter and pitched the clinching game of the World Series.

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A Fenway experience wouldn't be a Fenway experience if it weren't for certain things: There's the smell of the sausage vendors outside, the cloud of traffic from the Kenmore T stop to the park, all those friendly and amiable scalpers, and, of course, the abundance of easy-to-find, affordable parking. OK, so I made that last part up.

Continue reading "Nuts and bolts and a day-late granny"

Two nights, two wins at Yankee Stadium ... that's more like it. We've also found two ways to prevent our bullpen from blowing a game - either take a seven-run lead into the ninth, or have your starter pitch the first nine innings (that's all of them, if you're scoring at home).

Continue reading "Keeping the bull in the pen"

OK, show of hands - who hasn't enjoyed the Kevin-Youkilis-in-goggles era? Manning first behind those fancy specs while sporting a monster shiner, he looks like he's getting ready to play Laser Tag. Since it gives him something of a tough appearance, we don't have to tell anyone it's all because he couldn't handle a warm-up throw. Maybe he can make the goggles a signature thing, like Rip Hamilton of the Pistons and his goofy plastic mask. Hey, if Youk can make the Chia pet goatee work, he can certainly pull off a pair of glasses. It made me start thinking of former players who wore the glasses. Chris Sabo was the first that came to mind. But how about Luis Rivera, former light-hitting shortstop in Beantown, he of the tiny, whispy mustache and glasses complete with that thing that connects around your neck to keep them on. Classic.

Continue reading "Channeling Chris Sabo"