WTF. I think you people have let the season of "Jake" affect your thought process. The vast majority of starting pitchers just don't blow through a season pitching one good game after another. The season Jake had in 2015 was an outlier...he never had one like that before and never will again. Just because Lester is the #1 doesn't assure he will pitch like one every game or even every other game. Admittedly, it would be nice but extremely unrealistic. Bob Gibson had 2 seasons like Jake, Randy Johnson had a few as did Koufax...Nolan Ryan never had one that good. Lester could continue to have his problems or he could just as easily knock off two or three good starts in a row. The only thing consistent about baseball is that there is very little consistency. If a hitter gets a hit 30% of the time, he's a star....a starter wins 20 out of 33 starts and he's a Cy Young candidate. There will almost always be a downswing for all players somewhere along the way....you just hope they get them out of the way before October.
No one is expecting every game to be dominant or even average or decent.
He has amassed 8 games of sub-standard, often atrocious, pitching.
If you can't analytically look at the numbers and determine that over the course of these 8 games that something isn't right, well then something isn't right about you.
This is THE WORST STRETCH OF BASEBALL in his CAREER. There is no way to sugarcoat this "as just a blip."
Not sure how anyone come to any other conclusion. My friends that have even played minor league ball --one of which played with him in minor league ball--has said something isn't right. Quit drinking the Kool-Aid and hope he figures it out and maybe take a rest. Just stop already.
