It wasn't really the bullpen yesterday, though. Because once Lester left the Sox in a seven-run deficit in the third, against a dealing Jesse Litsch, there was very little anyone could do, with the Sox eventually falling, 11-0, in front of 44,896 at Rogers Centre.
So what went wrong for Lester?
"Name it," he said. "Nothing was really working. Rushing through my delivery. Not a good tempo. When I did get the ground balls that I needed, they weren't at people.
"Just wasn't my day. The ball was up. Basically, everything that you don't want to do, I did today."
And it started early. On the first pitch he saw from Lester in the first inning, Vernon Wells hit the first of his two home runs, a two-run shot on a fastball down and in that Lester called the "best pitch I threw all day." It ended up banging off the facing of the second deck in left field, giving the Jays all the runs they would need, and ending an 0-for-11 stretch for Wells.
The Jays got only one run in the second, Kevin Mench scoring on a sacrifice fly.
The third? Well, that was a bit more problematic. Wells started by singling on a bouncer to left, followed by an infield single by Adam Lind. Wells eventually scored on a ground out, Lyle Overbay hit an RBI double, Mench followed with an RBI double, then John McDonald singled to left. That ended the afternoon for Lester, though his replacement, Chris Smith, added another run to Lester's total when Marco Scutaro hit a sacrifice fly.
"Everything's been down with action or cutting in," manager Terry Francona said. "Today just seemed a little flatter, up in the zone. Made some mistakes. On top of that, seemed like every ball today found a hole. Lot of pitches in a short period of time."
