Chicago Cubs ace Jon Lester spoke about the opener strategy on Monday. We think he’s opposed to it. But his actual quote was quite confusing.
Per Jesse Rogers of ESPN, Lester compared the opener to LeBron James. From there, good luck figuring out what he meant.
Jon Lester on openers:“You’re not going to not start LeBron James because you want him at the end of the https://t.co/QCPa1aMnlo’re going put him in to start the game and you’re going to put him in at the end of the game."
— Jesse Rogers (@JesseRogersESPN) February 25, 2019
Our best guess here is that he’s saying the best pitchers will both start and finish games, like LeBron. But needless to say, that’s not exactly clear. LeBron does start and finish games. But he does sit on the bench for a while in between. That’s not an option for a pitcher.
Lester probably should have thought this quote through a bit more. Unless, of course, he was just trying to mess with us here. That is a distinct possibility. If that was what Lester was trying to do, he succeeded.