Los Angeles Dodgers Show Jon Lester They Can Really Dance

In one of the more bizarre strategy moves in the NLCS, the Los Angeles Dodgers decided to hold a dance contest on the bases in hopes of flustering Jon Lester, who is well known for his inability to hold runners on. Might have worked, except all they did was dance all night.

Sometimes in baseball, you can overthink things when the simplest approach is the one that works best. For instance, Wee Willie Keeler, a Hall Of Famer explained his approach to hitting this way, “Hit ’em where they ain’t”. Makes sense, no? And Bill “Spaceman” Lee broke the art of pitching down to just two words when he was asked what his best pitch is. His terse reply, “Strike one”.

The “Yips” Syndrome

But for some reason, Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts apparently felt that they couldn’t beat Jon Lester by getting hits off him the old fashioned way. Instead, he decided that the Dodgers would try to shake him up a bit by running on him when they got men on base.

Now, Lester has had this problem of throwing to bases for years. To no avail, he has practiced to overcome this one flaw in his game for as long as he’s been playing the game. And it’s probably a mental thing with him than anything else, and it’s a well known fact that everyone in baseball knows about.

More from Call to the Pen

You might recall that Chuck Knoblauch suffered from a case of what is commonly called “The Yips”. Once, after making three errors in a game, he threw his glove down and left the field. Mickey Sasser experienced the same problem as a catcher with the Mets when he would double and triple pump just to get the ball back to the pitcher.

Basically, it’s not curable and if the Los Angeles Dodgers had followed through on their plan to run, it might have worked as a last ditch strategy to beat the guy. But instead of running or bunting back to Lester more, they looked ridiculous as though it was a Babe Ruth League game with all these exaggerated leads that were accompanied by feints and false starts that went nowhere.

And all they succeeded in doing was to make Lester angry. And, you don’t want to get that big guy mad. Because instead of getting flustered, he laughed them back to the dugout with a steady diet of two and four seam fastballs that kept the Dodgers at bay while the Cubs continued the wake up call for their bats.

But for Dave Roberts, who has been brilliant in piloting this flawed Dodgers team this far, this “run but don’t run” strategy was a bomb It didn’t cost them the game, but it defInitely made the team look silly and defenseless against Lester.

Soon, It Could Be The Indians Turn Against Lester

You can watch him give his (rather lame) reasoning behind the strategy here. But hopefully, the Cleveland Indians were curled up on the couch with their wives and families watching the game and trying to come up with a better way of beating this guy.

Next: Is the AL Central the division of the decade?

Dave Roberts gave it his rather feeble try. And next time, it just might be the Indians (who can run) who will have the chance to figure out Lester. Because he’s the hottest and best pitcher in the game at the moment . And it could very well turn out that the road to a World Series title leads through Jon Lester………

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