And the hits just keep on coming. At least now he can drink all the beer he wants and no one will say a word about it, unless he gains like 50 pounds because of it.

As reported by The Boston Globe:

New Red Sox general manager Ben Cherington said today that pitcher John Lackey will have Tommy John surgery and miss the 2012 season.

Fire Brand editor and CBSSports.com baseball writer, Evan Brunell, gives his take on the development and passes along extremely interesting information of how Lackey’s average annual salary dropped by about $2.7M per year due to the surgery.