Lester is More: Enough to Keep Him in Rotation?

Well, we did lose the game yesterday, but we saw the arrival of the much heralded Jon Lester – the next Andy Pettitte, the next Mark Mulder, the possible Once In A Generation pitcher that we have in our minor league system. Lester couldn’t get out of the fifth in his first start (shades of David Pauley) but did pitch enough for us to come away with two notable facts.

Jon Lester needs to work on his control. This much is evident. There is no mistaking the fact that the umpire shrank the strike zone on Lester, but this is common for rookies. A big-league umpire is not supposed to deviate from strike zones, but it’s long been known that an established major league pitcher will get calls that rookies will not (and vice versa for hitters) – and that it’s all part of coming of age in the big leagues. Even if Lester had the strike zone that Greg Maddux or Tom Glavine has, this would still be point number one on the To-Do List for Jon Lester. His very first pitch in the big-leagues was a high and wide fastball sailing up and away from a right-handed batter – Varitek had to leap for it.

I do realize that this first pitch had a lot riding on it – the first pitch in the gol’darned big leagues, boy! Nevertheless, it showed what was to come. Lester needs to firm up his pitches, tighten up his command, if he wants to be successful in the major leagues. This is major sticking point number one towards even staying in the major leagues. If he never develops this command, he’s going to have a Bruce Chen career.

I will be the first to admit that at least it’s a career, but I’m sure you know what I’m referring to when I call it a Bruce Chen career. If not, Chen had a lot of promise when he was first called up, and saw that turn into bouncing around the major leagues with flashes of brilliance showing up, but never for too long. Passing through Boston, Chen eventually wound up in Baltimore in 2004 and impressed in 47.2 IP to turn in a 13-10, 3.83 line last year. He’s falling apart this year.

Lester coughed up 25 walks in AAA to go along with 43 strikeouts. That’s a 1.72 K/BB ratio. For comparison, Curt Schilling is at 8.56 and Josh Beckett is at 2.39. We do know that Beckett is a lot better than he’s currently showing, but we also know that his 2.39 K/BB is not helping matters. Last year, it was at 2.86, but of course, he gave up a total of 14 homeruns all of last year. Right now, he’s clocked at 16, and all are mystifyingly on the road. One must be led to believe that this low K/BB of 2.39 does not go hand in hand with the spike in home runs well. More runners on base and more home runs equal disaster.

Okay, so we’ve established that his control has to be worked on. What about his stuff? Well, Jon Lester has the stuff. With his fastball solidly at 93-94 mph, it’s major league caliber. Also fine is his curveball, which while not 12-6, is still a good complement to his fastball and can garner outs. He also threw his cutter, which he started developing in 2005, for strikes. He also features a changeup, but to be honest, the only two pitches that stood out to me were his fastball and his curve, which shows you that these are the only two true major-league caliber pitches so far, although I’ve heard reports that his cutter was working well last night.

Jon Lester does have the stuff, but he has to feature his stuff more consistently. He needs to do better with regards to pitch count. If you look at the chart, his pitch count is consistently in the 80s and 90s, and he isn’t even past the fifth inning yet! This is a huge red flag showing us that Jon Lester is simply not ready for the major leagues.

However, he’s likely to remain in the starting rotation. Who knows, maybe with a week’s preparation, he’ll shine in his next outing like David Pauley did, but he’s still exhibiting the same command issues that he did in AAA. Pauley is likely to be sent down to AAA once Mike Timlin comes off the DL on Tuesday or Wednesday (and incidentally, Pauley is scheduled to start the second game on Sunday). Lester is scheduled to pitch Thursday at Minnesota on national TV, ESPN2. Lester may be up for good because David Wells looks no closer to returning, and closer to retirement. The prevailing question surrounding Wells is why his knee is not getting any better if it’s only a deep bone bruise.

We may be seeing a lot of Jon Lester to come, but I for one would prefer to see him optioned back to AAA, see Pauley get his longman work in today and return to the rotation. With Pauley’s sinker, I think he’s a much better short term fix than Lester. Lester can head back to Pawtucket armed with a major league start’s knowledge, and keep on working to refine his command.

The only thing better than that would be to see David Wells return and give us what he gave in 2005, or to see us acquire a midlevel starter to insert into the #5 hole and allow us to send both Lester and Pauley to the minors. We’d be taking a risk on him being the next Jeff Suppan, but that is a risk we need to take, I think. We simply cannot count on Lester and Pauley right now (unless Pauley keeps turning in outings like he did in the Bronx) but we’re going to have to until this David Wells situation pans out and the trade market asserts itself.

Until then, I’ll be happy watching a bonafide Sox-bred minor league phenom try to do well in the major leagues. It’s been way too long since we could say that.