Aces In An Early Season Hole

(Photo by J. Meric/Getty Images)

 "I felt good. But when you're going against another team's No. 1 and give up four runs, you're going to lose,"   -David Price on his outing against Baltimore.

Here's the list of pitchers from yesterday's slate that ended up struggling taking either the loss for their team or ending up with a no decision: David Price, Jon Lester, Ubaldo Jimenez,  CJ Wilson, Fausto Carmona, Carl Pavano, and Mike Pelfrey. That is one hell of an All-Star caliber list of guys right there. As David Price stated above, if you give up 4 runs facing off against the other teams ace, you will most likely lose.


The start that stood out most to me was Jon Lester's against the Rangers. Lester lacked command of most of pitches throughout the outing giving up 3 home runs. It was the first time in his career that he gave up 3 dingers in a start. At one point Lester hit 2 batters in an inning and left his pitches out over the plate and missed Jarrod Saltalamacchia's glove way too much resulting in giving up 5 earned runs. His stat line for the outing was as follows:

Jon Lester: 5.1 IP, 6 H, 5 R, 5 ER, 3 HR, 1 BB, 0 K, 2 HBP

The Red Sox will need a quick turnaround from Lester with the uncertainty of Josh Beckett and in my opinion the ugliest pitcher to watch throw a game, Daisuke Matsuzaka. Lester does have a history of terrible April starts and since 2008 has an ERA of over 8. I expect nothing but improvement from Lester but as for opening day starts goes, this one was ugly.

*Do note that even as a Yankee fan I have nothing against Jon Lester. In fact we both share something big in common both having fought Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma at around the same time.