Well he did pitch again and he wowed the crowd in his final regular-season performance.
The southpaw courageously took the hill Thursday night despite the pain of a line drive off the leg in the Bronx and proved that his pitching wasn’t affected at all. Lester went 6 1/3 shutout innings on Thursday night and held the Indians to just two hits to earn his 15th win of the season. He walked one batter and struck out seven before handing things over to the bullpen.
Manager Terry Francona knew his so-called leg injury wouldn’t be an issue — because if it had been, he wouldn’t have even taken the hill.
“We were really happy — we didn’t think it would be an issue. We wouldn’t have let him pitch [if it was an issue],” Francona said after the win. “It was really nice to see him pitch as well as he did, for a lot of reasons. He covered first, and I think in the first six innings of the game elevated the ball. It was nice to see him getting down in the zone and pitching the way he does. It worked out really well.”
Below is the rest of Francona’s postgame news conference:
