Five nothing over the Blue Jays: Perhaps the best game of Jon Lester's career

28 up, 27 down. After seeing his team play some of its worst baseball of the year,  Jon Lester took the mound last night downing each of the first 17 batters he faced before, after seeing his perfect game broken up by a 6th inning double, going on to drop the remaining 10 in quick succession.

“He had everything working tonight — fastball, changeup, cutter, curveball,” said a glowing Jarrod Saltalamacchia following the game. “My job was easy to be honest with you. Sit there, put a finger down and he’d throw it right where I put my glove. It was fun.”

Honestly for those watching last night, it WAS fun. Nonetheless, even after seeing his perfect game shattered midway through the 6th inning by a pinch hit Adam Lind double to left field, Lester refused to allow anymore than he already had, going on to beg the question, was this the greatest game the now 29 year old southpaw has ever pitched.  Looking across his near hall of fame career, coming into last night, a specific game in the May of 2008 stood alone on top of Lester's podium of pitching gems. 19 days into that month of May, a then 24 year old Lester was slated to make his 5th start of the year kicking off a 4 game home-stand against Kansas City. Over the ensuing 9 innings of that infamous ball game, Lester fanned 9 different batters walking just 2 and allowing no Royals players to register a hit. For the first time in his career, Jon Lester had snagged a no hitter. 

 With all due respect that 2008 Jon Lester no-no dazzled hitters and was really a turning point in a then struggling Jon Lester's young career. Nonetheless when comparing the way he played that night '08 to his output last night, in some aspects of the pitching line, Lester player with even more dominance than he had 5 years ago. Shocking right? 

First and foremost the biggest difference was amount of walks allowed and all around accuracy of his pitches. As said before, in 2008, Lester walked 2 batters as opposed to the big old goose egg in the same category last night. In conjunction with that, when looking solely at the number of base runners and at bats allowed, those two walks translated directly into 2 different base runners bumping Lester's at bat total up to 29 different batter faced. Last night on the other hand, with just 1 hit and no walks allowed, only 1 Toronto player reached first base forcing Lester to face just 28 batters, thus translating into the next major difference between the 2 games. Number of pitches. Once again, in '08 Lester threw just 130 pitches opposed to just 118 hurled in last nights game. 

You may draw your own conclusions but after looking at the stat sheets from both games, aside from the amount of hits allowed, last nights game was the best of Jon Lester's career. End of story.