The Leads That The Dodgers Were Taking Off Of Jon Lester In Game 5 Were Preposterous
The “Jon Lester can’t throw to first base” thing still blows my mind. I watched this dude pitch in Boston for nine years, and I never saw anything like this. Unfortunately for the Cubs, this problem didn’t rear its head until he got to Chicago.
That Chris Russo rant is from the second week of the 2015 season, so that’s how “new” the issue is. I’m still confused by it, to be honest. Like, is that something that was there all along, but we never noticed, because nobody ever exploited it? Did he develop it over time? I have no idea. Regardless, I think Russo was obviously wrong to say that it’s not a story. It’s definitely a story. But at the same time, it’s a problem that has yet to actually cost Lester in a big game. Regardless of the fact that it didn’t cost him in Game 5 last night, the leads that the Dodgers were taking against him were absolutely preposterous.
The Dodgers were 2-for-2 in stolen base attempts with Lester on the mound, but I feel like they could’ve swiped as many bags as they wanted to with leads like that, knowing that Lester was never going to throw over. Just look at that last one — the lead that Joc Pederson took in the seventh inning. You NEVER see anything like that at the major league level. It’s like in Little League when you can’t take a lead, so you just point your body towards the second base bag, waiting for contact so that you can take off, only these guys were operating with abnormally gigantic leads.
There was a great piece on FanGraphs today, that explained the psychology behind all of this, and why base runners don’t attempt to steal on Lester even more frequently than they already do. The author obviously gives credit to David Ross for being able to pick runners off at first base after a pitch has been delivered in order to keep the runners honest, but the author was also trying to explain how even the base runners can’t fucking comprehend this scenario where they’re taking a lead off of first base, and the pitcher on the mound can’t throw over to pick them off.
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Runners basically psyche themselves out, because it’s borderline unfathomable that here stands one of the best pitchers in the game, who can pinpoint a baseball in any quadrant of the strike zone at home plate, yet he can’t throw a baseball over to first base from that same spot. Baseball is such a weird sport.