In order not to start his morning with the sour notes from the bullpen that we all know will come later today, he wanted to share a bit about Jon Lester’s NO-HIT performance. Hello the puppies did win after all.
To be sure, through five no-hit innings, he would anticipate more smells than just 2 of 76 pitches, and more than one strikeout. He also averaged 86.6 mph on the sum of his pitches last night. Usually those would be indicators of a lot of flukey luck on the balls in play to get 15 outs without any falling. Rockets finding gloves and all that, right?
But you know what? The Reds couldn’t actually hit him:
Jon Lester may have hit just one in his five innings without success, but let’s be clear, the Reds weren’t pooping on contact: pic.twitter.com/Ngd6fLGzUa
– Bleacher Nation (@BleacherNation) July 28, 2020
Not a single ball in play even had a 50% chance of being a hit based on the quality of contact. Heck, eight of them had a probability of 2% or worse! Those could also be strikeouts.
Lester’s night was always going to be limited by his pitch count – he was going to hit a high of around 80 pitches, based on his level of stretching, but you could imagine he had run out of hits without the two errors behind him. That’s almost as good as a night for a boy who isn’t smelling. And with a fastball that averaged 89.3 mph, Lester was the quintessential “left-handed” softball pitcher who annoys boys. He pitched five different pitches at least six times out of 76 pitches, he changed speed with very similar bids, he changed his eye level, he placed well, and so on.
Enjoy the best moments:
