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.
from baseballmusings.com http://ift.tt/2dsW7U2
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