Traditionally a team’s Opening Day starter is their ace, the pitcher who will deal, pitch for pitch, with the opponents best arms week in and week out throughout the season; pitchers like Johan Santana of the New York Mets.
Today against the same pitcher he was rumored to be part of a package of prospects to acquire, Jon Lester showed everyone why his name should be tossed in the ring for the role of Opening Day starter this year in Japan should Josh Beckett not be able to make the trip due to a sore back.
Before we go further, Jon Lester isn’t auditioning to be the Boston Red Sox ace…yet. While much will be counted on the young lefty in his first full season in the Major League rotation, Lester will be allowed to grow from the number four slot behind Beckett, Daisuke Matsuzaka, and Tim Wakefield. But even if only a Spring Training game, today’s outing against Johan Santana was a statement game for Lester who came into the game with a spring ERA over 10.00.
Jon Lester’s battles over the past two years have been well documented. Having battled and defeated cancer, Lester spent most of last season getting his feet back under him. Although he wouldn’t say as much, the problems with his health had taken a toll on his body and it’s development as a professional athlete. You don’t need to look much further than the Jon Lester on the mound today to see how a young slender body has transformed with a healthy off season into more the type of frame you would expect out of a stud pitcher in the Major Leagues these days.
With command of all his pitches, Lester went four strong scoreless innings, keeping his pitch count limited while throwing 42 of his 66 pitches for strikes while mowing down five Mets.
“Every start is taking a step in the right direction,” Lester said. “I’ll just look to keep building off this and hopefully carry this over into my next start.”
Pre-season projections and simulations predict Lester to finish the season with an ERA over 4.50 and a near .500 record, while respected baseball voices like Peter Gammons think Lester is poised to break out now that his recovery from lymphoma is behind him.
“Fellow lymphoma survivors Scott Radinsky and Jerry DiPoto said it would take 15-18 months for Lester to regain his strength. But this spring he has put on 20 pounds of muscle, his velocity is up in the mid-90s, his curveball is sharp, and they’re holding back on his cutter until the rest of his arsenal is ready.”
I wrote in my pre-season breakdown of the Red Sox chances that if the Red Sox got a 10 plus win year out of Lester with a 4.50 ERA over 28 plus starts, that the back of the rotation would be able to match the efficiency that drove the staff’s success last year. While that projection is realistic, Lester’s performance today and voices like Gammons championing him will start to cause people to dream much bigger about the potential of what could be from him this season.
Of course, while the world around him may be full of thoughts anointing him as the Opening Day starter for the defending World Champions and everything that goes with that, Lester won’t bite.
“I don’t look at it that way,” Lester said today to the media in Florida after his start. “You don’t look at a different role or a different spot or anything like that. You just get the opportunity to get the ball and go pitch. That’s all you can really do.”
Just getting the ball, going and pitching will be a welcome relief this season as Lester’s sites are set squarely on baseball. Just ask the Mets what that could mean for opposing batters this season.