Lester gets the go-ahead

It was time for him to pitch. Saturday, for Pawtucket in Ottawa, to be exact.

After two weeks of caution and long toss and bullpen sessions, Lester will be restarting his rehabilitation, back to the minors on another 30-day rehab assignment. It will potentially get him that much closer to a spot in the Red Sox' rotation, a spot that's been on his mind for quite a while.

"I'm real anxious," Lester said. "More or less, I just want to go pitch and not worry about a count or how many innings or anything. Just go pitch and not worry about anything. Just 'Here's the ball and we'll go get you when you're done' type thing. Hopefully, we'll get there soon."

It's been two weeks since Lester encountered a hitch in his quest to return to the rotation, coming back from anaplastic large cell lymphoma. His doctors told him he was free of cancer five cycles of chemotherapy into his treatment, and since that time, his focus has been on two things: recovery and return.

But that was before Lester came out of his first rehab start with Pawtucket with cramping in his left forearm. Since that time, the Sox have proceeded gingerly, having Lester work out with the big league club until they felt he could return to Triple A. That time is now.

Though he seems to rebel against it, Lester will still be on a pitch count, no matter how eager he is to take off the shackles. His limit will be 50-55 pitches against Ottawa.

"He must be feeling good because he's really fighting us on that," manager Terry Francona said. "He's ready to throw 100; that's probably really, really good."

Even with the setbacks, Lester said his pitching this year has been vastly different than last year. With his personal maturity has come baseball maturity, a sense that he can understand his mechanics enough to diagnose problems on his own. That, perhaps, is where the uptick in velocity -- noted in some of his minor league rehab starts in the mid-90s -- has manifested itself.