Rajai Davis, Indians plan to exploit Jon Lester on basepaths

CLEVELAND -- Everyone knows Jon Lester's weakness. The Cubs' Game 1 starter is a reliable left-handed workhorse at the front of Chicago's rotation, a four-time All-Star with great command of a fastball he can move in various ways and an effective curveball that keeps hitters off balance. When it comes to throwing baseballs toward the catcher's mitt, few in the world are better than Lester. It's throwing baseballs anywhere else that's the problem.

It's uncommon, but it's not unheard of: Pitchers spend so much time honing their mechanics for throwing off the mound and as hard as they can that something goes awry when they need to make far more routine throws. Lester's case might be the most prominent, if only because it's the most jarring: He's a big, strong, athletic pitcher and an imposing presence on the mound who appears to tense up whenever he needs to make a pickoff throw or field a bunt.

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In Lester's last NLCS outing against the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 5, the Los Angeles club tried to exploit the pitcher's struggles holding runners close by taking aggressive leads, as if daring Lester to throw over. But in part because Lester pitched well enough to keep most Dodgers from reaching base at all, the club stole only two bases against him and failed to do anything to prevent him from throwing seven strong innings and earning the win.

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To hear veteran Indians outfielder Coco Crisp tell it, players can take such big leads off Lester that they venture into parts of the basepaths they rarely see before pitches are thrown. That fosters tentativeness.

"It's hard to believe that they're really off as far as they are and he's really not going to throw over," Crisp said Monday at Progressive Field. "It's kind of like, 'Is he...? Nah. Nah. This was all a hoax, just for this moment.' That's kind of what goes through the back of your mind. It's a real fear, like spiders and snakes."

"It's a fear of getting caught," said outfielder Rajai Davis, when asked why the Dodgers didn't run more. "It didn't look like they did much. I don't know if we'll be the same."

If the Dodgers appeared uncomfortable attempting stolen bases against Lester, it could be from unfamiliarity with the task: Los Angeles stole only 45 bases during the regular season, ranking 26th out of 30 MLB clubs in the stat. The Indians, meanwhile, led the American League by swiping 134 bags in the regular season, stealing them at an excellent 81.2% clip.

Still, the Indians mostly played it coy when asked if they planned to exploit Lester's weakness.

"Obviously he's not good (at holding runners), so that's a thing we want to take advantage of," said Davis, who led the AL with 43 steals and got caught only six times. "I've been aggressive all year, so it's nothing new for me. Just going out there and getting on base is the key."

"If I do have a plan, that's information for me to keep to myself," said Jose Ramirez, who finished second on the club with 22 steals, through a team translator. "I don't want to say it on the radio because that's a plan that I have to win."

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Veteran backstop David Ross serves as Lester's personal catcher. With a strong arm and a penchant for throwing behind runners taking big leads -- known as a "backpick" among baserunners -- Ross helped Lester keep his stolen base totals manageable in 2016. Would-be basestealers actually had a lower than average success rate against Lester during the regular season, and the total number of steals against him plummeted from a league-high 44 last season to a more reasonable (though still high) 28 this year.

"It's a huge help for him when you've got a guy who has an accurate arm, quick off the trigger from behind home plate," Crisp said.

Cubs manager Joe Maddon acknowledged the Indians' success in stealing bases, but said the team had no intentions to alter any gameplans because of it.

"What Jon does as good as anybody in Major League Baseball is throw the ball from the mound to the plate, and that's it," Maddon said. "I wanted Jon to focus on what he does well first.

"You always worry about what they don't do well, and in the meantime you don't work on what they do well, and it becomes confusing. I'd much rather our guys work on what they do well and really nail that down.... In today's world, you have to scout everything, you have to have all this data and all this information, and while you're doing all that stuff, you don't take care of yourself. I'd rather we attempt to take care of ourselves first and react after that."

Lester, a member of the 2007 and 2013 world champion Boston Red Sox, will be making the 18th postseason start of his career on Tuesday in Game 1 of the World Series, squaring off against Indians ace Corey Kluber.

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