Jon Lester was the first Boston Red Sox pitcher to address the media regarding the rotation’s in-game clubhouse antics. Sitting down with Peter Abraham of the Boston Globe, Lester admitted that he and his teammates did indeed drink beer during games, but that the overall reports and rumors were overblown.
Lester told Abraham that drinking in the clubhouse was a bad habit, but that he usually only had a single beer. Lester compared the one drink to “having a Coke” in terms of how it affected him “mentally or physically”.
Understanding that it looks bad from the outside, Lester said that he and his teammates were not getting “hammered” and that the reports of pitchers playing video games are false. While Lester and others ordered from Popeye’s “like once a month”, they were all watching the game in the clubhouse.
Lester admitted that he “should have been on the bench” more than he was, but that he and other pitchers drinking in the clubhouse didn’t cause Boston’s September collapse. Lester said that the Sox just flat out “stunk” and that he and others were doing the same types of things during games when Boston had the best record in baseball earlier in the year.
As evidenced by the clubhouse incidents, Lester confirmed that Boston “never had rules” or “that iron-fist mentality” under Francona. Though he said he loves his former manager as a person, Lester told Abraham that Francona lost his authority and “got burnt out”. Lester believes that the Red Sox of 2011 “probably needed more structure”.
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