John Lackey is not the most endearing player on the team. And maybe he seems to make excuses or create blame elsewhere instead of assuming the responsibility. But you have to wonder how annoyed you would be if you were squeezed harder than a Jack Lalanne juicer.
Here is the strike zone plot from Lackey’s outing against the Padres. Keep in mind that Lackey’s previous three outings consisted of base on ball counts of 2,2,0 respectively.
I’m not trying to say Lackey is off the hook for his less-than-stellar Red Sox tenure, but you can easily see 9 pitches that are clearly strikes going as balls. That’s 11% of his total pitch count called incorrectly. Lackey won his previous three starts (two of which were good outings) and I really think this guy will be A-OK before you know it. It’s hard to be patient though.