Terry Francona Elects Not to Shuffle Rotation to Help Jon Lester Reach 20 Wins

The Red Sox considered starting Jon Lester in the opener of the series in New York in order to give him an extra chance to pick up his 20th win, manager Terry Francona said Friday from Yankee Stadium.

Lester, who has 18 wins, is scheduled to pitch two more times this year, Saturday in New York and Thursday in Chicago. If he was bumped up one night to Friday, he would have been able to pitch Wednesday in Chicago and get in an extra start on three days' rest in the season finale Oct. 3.

With this past Thursday a day off, Lester would've entered the Bronx on his normal rest. Instead, the Sox will stay on schedule and start Josh Beckett in the opener and Lester in the second game on five days' rest.

"Ten days, two weeks ago … we had discussed that," Francona said. "There was some talk about that. I think we're pretty comfortable with where we're at. If you start manufacturing starts for Lester right now, we might end up trying to do something good for him and then do [something bad to someone else]. The kid's thrown a lot."

Lester is 13 1/3 innings shy of matching his career high. He has won five straight starts to get to the brink of becoming the first Boston left-hander to win 20 since Mel Parnell in 1953, but he will have to keep that winning streak alive to obtain the milestone.

"There's nothing wrong with just letting him throw when he's supposed to," Francona said. "We're not trying to manufacture starts for him."

Lester's pursuit of history is one of several late-season bids for milestones for the Red Sox:

• Clay Buchholz will enter his start Monday in Chicago with a 2.39 ERA, just 0.08 behind American League leader Felix Hernandez of Seattle. Like Lester, Buchholz has two more scheduled starts.
• Third baseman Adrian Beltre is one RBI shy of reaching 100 for the second time in his career.
• David Ortiz needs four RBIs to reach that mark for the sixth time and first since 2007.