April 19, 2007

Lester On His Way To Pawtucket

[I took pictures at Skydome last night. See them here.]

Jon Lester will start for Greenville (A) on Friday, travel to Boston for a Sunday side session, then be moved up to Pawtucket. He may pitch on Wednesday April 25 in Rochester.

Red Sox pitchers have allowed three or fewer runs in each of the last eight games. That matches a similar streak from May 11-19, 1994. In 1988, Boston pitchers had a streak of 11 such games. ... Also, the starters have earned the decision in each of the first 13 games, the first time that has happened since 1918.

Coco Crisp (.136):
Everybody's not going to hit .400. There are some guys hitting .400 right now. They're not going to hit .400 the whole year. There's a lot of guys hitting in the .100s, they're not going to hit there. It's going to kind of balance out. Obviously, you'd like to start up near the .400s and slowly come down -- or stay up there -- instead of going uphill, but who is last can become first.
Portland (AA) has had 7 of its 10 home games (and 9 of 14 games overall) postponed because of inclement weather.

The Yankees are still not sure who will be pitching for them in Boston this weekend (LOOGY Mike Myers has volunteered to start), but Friday night's matchup will be Curt Schilling/Andy Pettitte.

Doug Mirabelli on Wakefield's knuckleball last night:
His knuckleball was unbelievable. It's been like that every start he's had. It's almost scary back there. It's moving a lot more than normal. I don't know where it's going to go.
When Lyle Overbay walked on four pitches in the 4th inning, Mirabelli could not catch any of the pitches cleanly.

David Ortiz's 7th inning home run was the 178th of his Red Sox career. He's tied with Nomar for 10th on the team's all-time list.

4 comments:

s1c said...

It's good to see that he is moving up to the Paw Sox. I hope that is where he stays though, because I really don't think he will help us this year. He really needs to show me that he can dominate the AAA level.

9casey said...

s1c said...
He really needs to show me that he can dominate the AAA level.


He was 7-2 on the major league level last year......

And he has to show you something?

allan said...

He was 7-2 on the major league level last year...

W-L isn't the best way to judge a pitcher. It isn't even the 10th best way.

I liked Lester last year and I think he'll be in Boston well before the All-Star break, but he did allow a shitload of baserunners in 2006.

In 81.3 innings, he allowed 91 hits and 43 walks for a 1.648 WHIP (that will not cut in the the bigs at all). But he had extraordinary luck pitching out of jams.

His 4.76 ERA left him with a 97 ERA+, below league average, but for a rookie that may have been a bit rushed to the majors, he did pretty good. And I expect him to improve.

League average ERA from our 23 yo 5th starter will be more than enough.

s1c said...

As Redsock said W L isn't the only way you look at him. As I outlined at my peace post out of his 15 starts he went over 6 innings twice, pitched six innings 4 times and went 5 innings 7 times. That is a starter who will kill your bullpen. I like Lester, but he has to dominate AAA so that I can have some confidence that he can give me 6+ innings on a consistent basis not once every 7 starts.