October 21, 2016

Lester Responds

Ken Rosenthal pens a great article on how Jon Lester handled the mind games and distractions the Dodgers tried to use against him in game five of the NLCS:

“They have a game plan going in that they want to bunt, they want to show bunt, get big leads, do all that stuff,” Lester said. “That’s fine. I’d rather have Adrian Gonzalez and Joc Pederson and all these guys bunt than hit it out of the ballpark.

“As much as they think it gets me off my game, I’d rather have those guys try to keep the ball in the infield. Our infielders are really good.”

Some great pitchers never care about the running game, Jim Palmer and Dwight Gooden come to mind. Their strategy was to get the batter out. If they get the batter, the stolen bases won’t matter.* Lester executed that plan Thursday night.

*In my opinion, this was the Yankees failure against the Red Sox in the 2004 ALCS. Mariano Rivera was perfectly capable of getting the Red Sox hitters. Instead, he allowed himself to be distracted by Dave Roberts (now the Dodgers manager), and didn’t give his full concentration to the hitters.

2 thoughts on “Lester Responds

  1. pft

    Teams have been trying to do this for 2 years. It doesn’t work. The only way he gets distracted is when they actually steal bases. Roberts should have had his team more aggressive on the basepaths

    Riveras problem with distraction actually came from having to go to Panama between the LDS and LCS for a funeral of family members who died in an accident

    ReplyReply
  2. Val

    Thank you, Jon!
    “That’s fine. I’d rather have Adrian Gonzalez and Joc Pederson and all these guys bunt than hit it out of the ballpark.

    ReplyReply

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