Lester is back

In what is a quickie post for the evening, I thought it was worth pointing out that Jon Lester made his return to the mound today after being diagnosed with lymphoma last season.

According to the Boston Globe article from the link:

If the 18-20 scouts who were on hand to watch Jon Lester and the Twins' Sidney Ponson in a "B" game at Hammond Stadium yesterday morning had just climbed out of a cave, they never would have known that Lester is coming off a winter when he was treated for anaplastic large cell lymphoma. They saw a big, strong kid throwing the ball pretty well -- hitting 90 miles per hour with one fastball, 89 on two others -- in an eight-pitch outing in which he got three ground balls before hitting the shower.

You could sense Lester's frustration about wanting to stay out there for another inning. After all, eight pitches? But the Red Sox are taking a long-term view. As pitching coach John Farrell put it, "We're trying to look at 10, 12, 15 years down the road. I think Jon has finally accepted that. It's hard for him because he wants to go out there and be on the same schedule as everyone else, and in the drills we performed, he was. But we're just trying to be smart."

Welcome back.