Jon Lester Displays Improvement on Mound but Lack of Run Support Hurts His Cause

by abournenesn

Aug 8, 2012

Jon Lester Displays Improvement on Mound but Lack of Run Support Hurts His CauseBOSTON –– For five innings, Jon Lester was nailing his spots.

The Red Sox pitcher was finally shaking his July woes, when he surrendered 25 total runs over four starts. And in Tuesday’s 6-3 loss against Texas, Lester was nowhere near those struggles until the sixth and seventh innings.

Had he received run support, the lefty may have escaped with the win. Instead, the loss marked his 10th of the season, setting a new career high for him — his previous was nine in 2009 and 2010.

“I can’t keep talking about being frustrated and all this stuff,” Lester said. “It’s like beating a dead horse. Everybody knows here that we’re frustrated and we don’t like losing. We keep beating a dead horse. But there’s positives for me personally from this game that I’m going to take and go forward to the next one.”

The lack of run support — a reoccurring story this season for Lester — continued to waste his solid starts. And now, the 28-year-old is winless in his last seven starts since July 3, extending his career-long drought.

But the Rangers’ lineup was also to blame and deserved credit for capitalizing on Lester’s mistakes. Both Ian Kinsler and Josh Hamilton pounced on a couple of curveballs and collected RBIs in the sixth while Mark Melancon allowed the runners he inherited from Lester to score in the seventh.

Despite yielding four runs in the last two innings, Lester said he’d continue to focus on the first five innings.

“I’ve got to keep looking at the positives,” Lester said. “Like I just said, three or four pitches out of 111, 112 pitches. That’s a positive. An offense like that beats you when you make those types of mistakes. It was what it is. It was their night. [Texas starter Ryan] Dempster did a better job of minimizing damage.”

And it brought the Red Sox below .500 yet again.

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