The wait finally came to an end on Sunday night, as the Chicago Cubs and their fans were finally able to watch their $155 Million Man go to work, as Jon Lester was on the bump against the St. Louis Cardinals at bleacher-less Wrigley Field. The start didn’t work out the way anyone would have liked, for a variety of reasons. Nonetheless, Lester left some positives that can be applied to his work moving forward, and help him solidify himself as the anchor of this rotation that the Cubs need him to be.
Lester finished his evening with a line that featured just 4 1/3 innings, due to a pitch count that was up at 89 and the multitude of baserunners he dealt with all night, to go along with six strikeouts and a pair of walks. The defense behind him featured only one official error, though you could have made the case for a few others that allowed Cardinal runners to take some liberties that they may not have otherwise had the opportunity to take.
According to the folks over at Brooks Baseball, Lester’s pitch usage on Sunday night featured an overwhelming use of the fastball, which accounted for 48 of his 89 pitches (a 53.93% figure). The sinker and change were a virtual non-factor for him, as he utilized the two for a combined seven pitches, which doesn’t really represent any sort of surprise. He tossed the curve 10 times, and the cutter 24, representing his second most often used pitch.
In terms of his ability to hit the strike zone, Lester was definitely a little bit shaky. Just over 35 percent of his fastballs missed the strike zone, while a touch over 20 percent of his cutters failed to hit the zone as he needed them to. Anyone who watched the ESPN broadcast received a pretty quick indication that it was a rough strike zone both ways, which attributed to the woes here just a bit, but the fact that Lester was not able to utilize his cutter as effectively as he needed to was certainly a predominant factor in his issues on Sunday.
The following represents Lester’s usage in various situations on Sunday night (from Brooks):
Again, we’re not seeing anything too surprising here. Lester used the fastball almost exclusively throughout the night, which does give a bit of an indication as to his struggles to get a grip on his control. The positive is that he did tighten things up as the night wore on, particularly in relation to his cutter. Obviously, his pitch count was still mighty high by the time he figured things out, due to the Cardinals working deep into at-bats, but it certainly bodes well for his next start.
Perhaps the larger concern for the Cubs and for Lester is his inability to hold runners accountable while they’re out on the bases. Three baserunners stole bases off of Lester, while runners were able to advance due to misplays by outfielders that were not recorded as official errors. Lester’s unwillingness to hold runners on base with throws over to first base have represented a constant narrative in national broadcast going back to last year’s postseason. That will have to be addressed moving forward.
While this obviously doesn’t look like a positive start for Lester, especially being his first appearance in a Cubs uniform for a national audience, there are plenty of things that should indicate a bounce back moving forward. His FIP in the start was just 1.67 (take that with an enormous grain of salt, of course, being just one start) and the Cardinals found an absurd amount of luck in posting a .571 BABIP for the evening. Lester had his strikeout pitch working, and is up over a dozen strikeouts per nine after his one start, even if he had to go deep into counts to get the punchouts.
Provided things are as tight for Lester early on in his next outing as they were later in his first start, we should see a much more crisp outing from him in his next turn in the rotation. He might not be punching folks out at the rate that he was on Sunday night, but if he can get that cutter working, he’ll be every bit the pitcher the Cubs need him to be and quickly put that rough Opening Night outing behind him.
