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Jon Lester (2.38) / Jarrod Washburn (4.41), 4 PM
Lester, who grew up in Tacoma, says his ninth major league start will be "nerve-racking".
Jon's father: "My wife [Kathy] watches on MLB's gamecasts. I won't watch. I get too nervous. I sit out in the garage and drink a Coke. She'll come in and give me updates. But I can't watch."
Bob Christofferson, the head groundskeeper at Safeco, was a former grade-school coach of Lester: "I'm probably as nervous as his mom and dad when I watch him pitch. ... He can have a good start, as long as the Mariners win."
Rick Barnhart, Lester's baseball coach at Bellarmine Preparatory School in Tacoma: "He was always a level above everyone else. As a freshman, he went right to the varsity. As a starter, he was the MVP as a ninth grader. ... His senior year, there must have been 25-to-30 scouts at every game and practice. I swear [the scouts] went to the bathroom with him."
Lester: "Going through the draft, I wanted to be a Mariner. I came up here for a pre-draft workout. I think they were interested. I just don't think they were interested in the round that I wanted to be picked in and they had other plans for that pick. It's a business and they had to do what they had to do."
Todd Claus, Portland Sea Dogs (AA) manager: "It would have been very tempting to give away Papelbon and Lester in trades for now-needs, but Theo keeps the big picture. He's not willing to mortgage the farm for a quick fix. ... I've always maintained from the first day I saw him he's one of the best prospects in the minor leagues I've ever seen. I've always believed he'd be a front end of the rotation starter. I just didn't know he'd have this kind of success this soon."
The Seattle Times has a good feature on Lester.
Lester's eight starts:
Date Opp Score Dec IP H R ER BB K
0610 Tex L 7-4 — 4.1 5 3 3 4 4
0616 Atl W 4-1 W 6.0 5 1 1 3 5
0621 Was W 9-3 W 6.0 3 1 1 2 10
0627 NYM W 9-4 W 5.0 4 2 2 5 5
0702 Fla W 4-3 — 5.0 7 2 2 3 3
0707 CWS W 7-2 W 6.0 6 2 2 3 3
0713 Oak L 5-4 — 5.0 5 1 1 5 3
0718 KC W 1-0 W 8.0 1 0 0 4 4
5-0 45.1 36 12 12 29 37 2.38
7 comments:
ok. that's it.
baseball is too protective of closers and pitchers in general and i'm fed up.
papelbon should have been out there in the 9th, i don't care if it was a tie game and the number of extra innings is uncertain, just put him the fuck out there to give us a chance. he didn't pitch yesterday HE CAN HANDLE IT. kthxxxxxxxx(((((((
very quick with the post-game comment!
i tend to agree with you (though papelbon is an arm i don't want to abuse at all!), but say the sox scored in the 11th, and papelbon had thrown 40 pitches in two innings. tito would probably not bring him out for a 3rd inning. who was left?
vanburen, seanez, tavarez.
timlin should have been able to get through that inning. (beltre's inside the parker really hurt.)
Boy, Tito's sure is an idiot! Why didn't he bring in Taverez and Seanez instead of Delcarmen and Timlin??
Ha, very good. As I'm fond of saying at home, Isn't it ever the pitcher's fault?
Manny's performance in LF looked as if his hands and feet were coated with Soul Glow
What?!? Coco fucks up twice on the ITPHR, leaping at the wall about 20 feet away from where the ball hit and then throwing wildly past the cutoff man -- and Manny gets shit?
Several outfielders on both sides had trouble with the sun yesterday. Please tell me I'm reading your comment incorrectly.
Isn't it ever the pitcher's fault?
Yes. This game. Timlin.
Please tell me I'm reading your comment incorrectly.
I look forward to seeing the answer to this.
Isn't it ever the pitcher's fault?
Yes. This game. Timlin.
Thank you.
Oh, you know I'm not so one-sided on this issue. But there are spots where he clearly makes the wrong decisions. You agreed with some of them in the Fri-Sat post.
Pulling Lester after the leadoff batter singled in the 6th was very good.
Now that I think about it, Yaz may have been referring to Johjima's double to left-center in the 7th, where Manny went into a slide to try and cut the ball off. That has worked in the past, but not this time. Actually, he kind of overran and when he slid, the ball went under him and squirted over to Crisp. That scored a run and the Sox lead was down to 7-6. Then Betancourt hit the next pitch for a single and tied the game.
Delcarmen, who is fast becoming one of my favourite pitchers, had a wicked curve in this outing, striking out the side, but those two hits, both with two outs, really hurt.
More frustration with the pitching: Lester walking the harmless Bloomquist not once, but TWICE -- on 9 total pitches. Unforgivable. And why is anyone throwing strikes to Adam Jones, who had five hits in the three games?
Oh, you know I'm not so one-sided on this issue. But there are spots where he clearly makes the wrong decisions. You agreed with some of them in the Fri-Sat post.
True, true and true.
However...
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