Don’t take Lester for granted
Playing nine innings while assuming Adrian Gonzalez‘s stiff neck explains his Casey Kotchman imitation lately . . .
1. Last Friday on Twitter — @GlobeChadFinn, if you’re so inclined — I made this observation about the local perception a certain Red Sox lefthander:
Surprised how many chatters were down on Jon Lester today. The list of pitchers I’d trade him for is short. (Felix, Verlander, who else?)
Keep in mind that this came after he had lost two consecutive starts and obviously before his seven-inning, three-hit, one-run gem against the Rays to earn his 12th win of the season. The hunch here is that Lester was back in the majority’s good graces after that more typical performance. Still, I was a bit taken aback at how many readers were arguing that he’s really not an ace-caliber pitcher.
Sure, Josh Beckett has been the superior pitcher this year, a genuine Cy Young candidate if not for a lack of run support. But it also struck me that perhaps Lester is being taken for granted somewhat. No, he hasn’t lived up to the predictions by the likes of yours truly that he will win the AL Cy Young award this season. But he has 12 wins, a 3.32 ERA, has been in the top five for rWAR among AL pitchers the previous three seasons and is seventh this year, has the best winning percentage (.702) of any active pitcher and the third-best in baseball history, has won the clinching game a World Series . . . and just turned 27 in January.
The Sox are fortunate to have a prime-of-career lefty who is both accomplished and promising. The days of Matt Clement starting a postseason opener weren’t that long ago, you know?
As for the answers some of you submitted: Yovani Gallardo, Tim Lincecum, Cliff Lee, CC Sabathia, Jered Weaver, Zack Greinke, Cole Hamels (Lester’s No. 1 comp), Michael Pineda, Stephen Strasburg, and the younger and perhaps slightly more talented lefthander pictured above who is the only one I’d add to my previous duo, Clayton Kershaw.
All right, and for the long term, maybe I’d add today’s version of David Price, too. But that’s it.
2. There are plenty of worthwhile questions to ask about Jacoby Ellsbury right now. Is he the Red Sox’ Most Valuable Player? Is he the AL’s Most Valuable Player? Is he even the AL East’s most valuable center fielder with the season Curtis Granderson is having in the Bronx? Is this power upgrade sustainable now that he’s not only learned how to hit the low, inside fastball, but to drive it 370-plus feet over the visiting bullpen? How sinister is Scott Boras’s laugh every time Ellsbury does something to enhance his spectacular statistics?
And the one I wonder about the most of all: Would he have become this incredibly well-rounded and dynamic player last year if he’d not had that high-impact collision with Adrian Beltre that cost him the season and, unfortunately, his reputation?
I’m beginning to think Ellsbury — who has always had wiry strength, batting-practice power, and a tireless work ethic — would have hit 15 or so homers a year ago, making his segue into an all-around force this season easier to foresee.
A letterman’s jacket. The perfect accessory for the aw-shucks Midwestern farm boy, and I mean that only half-facetiously. By all accounts,Thome is a gem of guy, genuine and habitually friendly, and while it’s probably fitting in some way that his quest for 600 homers got a small fraction of the publicity of Captain Jeter fist pumping his way his 3,000th hit received, he’s just the eighth player to join the club, and that’s worth celebrating.
Yes, he played on some suspiciously muscle-bound Indians teams, and three of the seven sluggers ahead of him on the home run list are his generational peers who have been implicated in performance-enhancing drug use.
But I don’t believe Ken Griffey Jr. used PEDs, I don’t believe Jeter did, or Frank Thomas, and I don’t believe Jim Thome juiced, either. Maybe I’m naive, but you’ve got to have leftover faith in something from that era besides Pedro Martinez‘s repertoire. And if you’re going to tell me that after this photo was taken that Thome went down to the soda fountain with Malph and Potsie before meeting up with his steady girl at the sock hop, well heck, I’ll buy that, too.
4. The occasion of Thome’s 600th homer jostled a vague recollection about a season early last decade when the Red Sox were in hot pursuit of the then-Indians slugger at the July 31 deadline. The details were a bit dusty, so I took a quick search through the Globe archives to reacquaint myself with the facts, mostly out of curiosity regarding the prospects the Red Sox would have supposedly parted with from their then-barren farm system.
Turns out the season was 2002, which was my guess. The centerpiece, according to the rumor, was Casey Fossum. And after pursuing Thome — something that apparently never got close to happening — and Phillies third baseman Scott Rolen, interim general manager Mike Port ended up getting Cliff Floyd from the Expos.
Always did wish Thome played for the Sox, but consider this bit of retrospective whimsy: Had the Sox traded Fossum in a deal for Thome, would the Red Sox have had enough to acquire Curt Schilling from Arizona a year-plus later? I don’t think Brandon Lyon, Jorge de la Rosa and Michael Goss would have gotten it done.
5. If there’s a chance the Red Sox can re-sign Marco Scutaro to a one-year deal over the winter, count me in.
I’m on record as a fan of Jed Lowrie‘s offensive potential, but he has the Luis Rivera double-whammy of lacking range and botching too many routine plays at shortstop, and I’m beginning to think someone in baseball ops actually built him out of leftover parts from Nomar, Tim Naehring, and Bret Saberhagen.
And let’s hold off on anointing Jose Iglesias as the imminent replacement until he gets that elusive seventh extra-base hit in Triple A. Scutaro is somewhere between adequate and average, and that’s usually good enough.
6. Unexpected stat of the day, per always-insightful reader Jeremy B.: With his eighth homer yesterday, Jason Varitek now has one more this season than Victor Martinez. Just to be clear, though, that’s an observation rather than an implication of V-Mart, who is hitting .321 with a .371 on-base percentage in his first season in Detroit and whose acquisition by the Sox during a playoff push two years ago should never been lamented despite Justin Masterson‘s emergence as a legitimate No. 2 starter.
7. It also should be noted that Varitek’s home run, on a 92 mph fastball from Jeff Niemann, is the first encouraging sign in awhile that he is capable of a productive second half — he’s hitting .152 with a .552 OPS in 50 plate appearances since the break, which follows his recent trend of late-season slides.
8. As terrible as he looks at times, I’m going to resist any temptation for now to write off an accomplished player such as Carl Crawford as a bust one year into a seven-year deal. But it’s pretty hard to comprehend right now that he began the season as the Red Sox’ No. 3 hitter.
9. As for today’s Completely Random Baseball Card:
After Lowrie-to-Pedroia-to-Gonzalez left the Rays’ Sean Rodriguez with a place in baseball history he’d probably prefer not to have in the nightcap Tuesday, Joe Castiglione was in good form recounting many of the triple plays he’s seen since he began calling Red Sox games in 1983.
I remember the most recent one turned by the Sox vividly — John Valentin‘s almost casual unassisted triple play against the Mariners on July 8, 1994.
There were the strange happenings of July 17, 1990, when the sluggish Lead Sox hit into two against the Twins and still won the ball game.
Until Castiglione’s reminder, I had forgotten that Jim Rice hit into one on the Fourth of July in 1988 — surprisingly, it came on a pop-up rather than one of his frequent grounders to the left side of the infield during his latter years.
As for the Sam Horn card? He’s have to be in the top-five Red Sox players who were most likely to hit into a triple play but didn’t, along with Doug Mirabelli, Mike Lowell, Calvin Pickering, and . . . well, let’s just say Adrian Gonzalez probably couldn’t beat many of those ’90s Lead Sox in a sprint.
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