5th Inning Strikes Again

If the word “pentaphobia” doesn’t yet exist in the Oxford English Dictionary, it might need to be added very soon — along with a little tiny picture beside it of Jon Lester watching Justin Morneau’s moonshot sail over the fence. In what is becoming something of a frightening tradition, Jon Lester ran into trouble yet again in the fifth inning of last night’s loss in Minnesota – and watched his ERA balloon back up again over 6.00. That marked the fourth time this season that Lester imploded on the mound in the 5th inning. I’m beginning to suspect that perhaps there’s some kind of curse that surrounds the number 5 for Jon.

Lester was visibly upset in the dugout after Tito told him he was done for the evening- hurling his towel against the dugout wall and slamming down his water bottle, before angrily grabbing his jacket and storming down into the clubhouse. And his frustration with his poor performance was also evident in his post-game comments:

“I gave up five runs,” Lester said after the Sox had lost, 5-2, to the Twins in front of 20,019 at the Metrodome. “What else is there to say about it?”

“Made one pitch. One pitch cost me three runs. Ballgame right there. I felt like I threw the ball pretty well, made one mistake, he hit it out.”

And even though Lester is focusing on that inside fastball he served up to Morneau as the problem, that one pitch alone didn’t put 5 (yikes! there’s another 5!) runs on the board. Lester’s BB/9 rate has inflated somewhat since last year from 2.8 to 3.2, but his K/9 rate improved by leaps and bounds from 6.5 to 9.4. The more troubling part is that his HR/9 leaped from 0.6 to 1.7 – and that can’t be written off as the effects of an unlucky BABIP. As Joe Haggerty pointed out earlier, Jon’s tendency to run out of gas around the 70/75 pitch mark may be the price he’s paying for being overworked in 2008.

At least Lester is still talking about executing pitches – so we know not everything’s out of wack.

“I think it’s just not executing pitches,” Lester said. “Tonight it was a 1-0 fastball in. If he takes it, it ends up being a ball. I don’t know what to tell you guys. I don’t really have any answers for you. Five days I get the ball again. That’s where I go.”

“It doesn’t matter what I do in-between starts. It matters on the day I pitch. You can work as hard as you want, watch as much film as you want, you still have to go and execute pitches and get people out. I did that for four innings, and obviously didn’t in the fifth. Film work, side work, lifting isn’t going to help the situation.”