Jon Lester Records 1,000th Career Strikeout in Bottom of Sixth Inning Against Robinson Cano

by Austin Pollack on Sat, Jul 28, 2012 at 11:03PM

With one out in the bottom of the sixth inning at Yankee Stadium, Robinson Cano swung through a 90 mph belt-high fastball, and thus that baseball might be on the plane back to Boston with Jon Lester.

Cano's strikeout was the 1,000th of Lester's career. He becomes the second Red Sox lefty to record 1,000 strikeouts. Lester is now only 43 Ks away from tying fellow southpaw Bruce Hurst, who is the Red Sox lefty all-time leader in strikeouts with 1,043.

His first was June 10, 2006 at Fenway Park against the Texas Rangers. Gary Matthews Jr. led off for Texas and he was Lester's first career victim. In that game, Lester went 4 1/3 innings, giving up three runs on five hits while walking four and striking out four.

This has been quite a season of milestones for the Red Sox. Aside from Lester's 1,000th strikeout coming Saturday night against the rival New York Yankees, David Ortiz hit his 400th career home run on July 4 against the Oakland Athletics.