Did Francisco Lindor Get in Jon Lester’s Head?

Jon Lester doesn’t throw to first. This isn’t new. In the National League Championship Series, Dodgers runners tried to dance off the first-base bag, taking large leads to try and disrupt Lester. By and large, it didn’t really work. The Dodgers didn’t take the extra base, and Lester had few problems pitching to the Dodgers with runners on.

Last night, in Game One of the World Series, the circumstances were mostly the same. On paper, at least. Cleveland did steal a base against Lester, but they also got caught stealing once, too. That’s actually a net positive for the Cubs in terms of runs. Again, on paper.

One of those stolen bases belonged to Francisco Lindor, though. Not only did the young shortstop steal a base in the first inning, but he preceded it with some of the same sort of dancing with which the Dodgers experimented previously. The end result of that first innings was two runs for Cleveland — the only two they’d need to win the game.

Was there anything Francisco Lindor did that might have gotten Lester out of rhythm in the first inning, or were the two walks and hit-by-pitch that followed simply ill-timed luck. Is there any evidence that ties Lindor’s steal to Lester’s head?

On the season, Lester threw 64% of his pitches for strikes. Generally speaking, he relies on swinging strikes to get batters out, as his strike-zone percentage of 46% placed him among the bottom quarter of qualified pitchers this year. Of the first eight pitches he threw before Lindor’s single, Lester recorded seven strikes, retiring Rajai Davis on four pitches and inducing a first-pitch out from Jason Kipnis. Lindor was only on first base for two pitches, both called balls by the umpire. The second pitch was in the strike zone, but as is sometimes the case on stolen-base attempts, David Ross‘ movements to prepare for throwing out the runner didn’t provide a good opportunity for framing; the pitch, likely as a result, was called a ball.

Six of Lester’s next eight pitches were balls, and suddenly the bases were loaded. For the rest of the game, Lester threw 64% of his pitches for strikes, just like the regular season. Unfortunately for Lester, one of the balls went to human ball-magnet Brandon Guyer, who has what could be generously called a “strategy” for getting hit. That HBP and a swinging bunt on the previous pitch led to the 2-0 Cleveland lead that proved to be the difference.

Let’s take a look at what Lindor did to “distract” Lester. Here’s the stolen base itself:

It doesn’t appear that Lindor does anything out of the ordinary here. He took perhaps a slightly larger lead than normal, and then ran on first movement. Lindor was safe, as Ross had difficulty getting the ball out of the glove. When August Fagerstrom discussed Lester and Ross, he went through the numbers on why it’s so difficult to steal on them despite Lester’s throwing problems:

Well, let’s run some math. The problem here is, Lester and Ross are quick. All of the following information comes from Statcast, provided by Mike Petriello. Lester was getting the ball to the plate between 1.1 and 1.2 seconds last night, and Ross’s average pop time for the season was 1.95, which ranked sixth among 83 catchers with at least five throws to second base. Both those figures could be considered plus to elite on a scouting scale, and as a battery, their ~3.15 time to second base is hard to beat.

Lindor took advantage of a slightly larger lead and the knowledge that he could leave on first movement without consequence. Those two things together likely put Lindor’s chances of stealing a base at something like average for him, after factoring in the speed of Lester’s delivery and Ross’s pop time. Did the steal get in Lester’s head to help cause the walks of the next two batters as Rajai Davis intimated?

Here are the pitches to the next batter, Mike Napoli, per Brooks Baseball:

That first pitch was up and outside and Ross had to reach for it, but it isn’t too far off from a pitch that might make it easy for Ross to either throw to second or behind the runner at first. The second pitch perhaps could have been a strike, but Lester didn’t get the call on Lindor’s stolen base attempt. On a 2-0 count, Lester missed outside, perhaps opting not to give in to a dangerous hitter in a hitter’s count. He didn’t groove one on 3-0, making a pitcher’s pitch on the outside corner. He missed away on 3-1, however, again refusing to give in. The prognosis: perhaps a lack of excellent command, but nothing exceptional about the misses.

The next batter was Carlos Santana. Here are the pitches to him:

Lester nibbles on the first two pitches, misses with his four-seam fastball, refuses to give in on 3-0, and then nibbles again on 3-0, missing a bit off the plate. The four-seamer that missed on the third pitch to Carlos Santana was the same one that missed on the first pitch to Mike Napoli. That wasn’t Lindor undoing him, though. That pitch was an issue all night. From Baseball Savant:

Maybe the cold weather made it more difficult to throw the pitch. In any case, Lester lacked command of his four-seamer for much of the night, placing a number of them out of the strike zone and throwing many others over the heart of the plate. It was the four-seam fastball on which Roberto Perez homered when it caught a ton of the plate.

So despite the sub-optimal effects, it doesn’t seem as though a lack of focus was the cause

And anyway, if Lindor really were in Lester’s head, it would have manifested itself in the third inning, when Lindor really began to take an aggressive lead following another single.

It didn’t, though. Lester gave up a hit to Jose Ramirez, yes, but on a pitch that was actually out of the strike zone. He then struck out Brandon Guyer to end the inning. To have a great chance of stealing against Lester, a runner needs to do two things — both, (a) take an enormous lead and (b) run. A runner can’t take a big lead without risking a pickoff from David Ross and, in a theory put forth by Jeff Sullivan that I’m beginning to embrace, hitters don’t seem inclined to take big leads because it feels ridiculous. The Dodgers tried to distract with excessive motion and it didn’t work.

Lindor played it by the book in his attempts, choosing not to get ridiculous, and he was successful one out of two tries. The play above shows Lester isn’t throwing to first under any circumstances. There’s evidence to suggest that Lindor should take an even bigger lead next time, if he gets the chance — as should any Cleveland runner with decent speed. They should probably expect to steal second base successfully. What they shouldn’t expect is for it to affect Lester.

Jon Lester pitches with good command and control of the strike zone, but this wasn’t the first time he walked two batters in an inning. Five times earlier this year, he walked at least two batters in an inning, doing it twice in one game against the Brewers on July 24. On June 18, he walked three batters in an inning, and back on July 9 against Pittsburgh, he walked two batters and hit another with the bases loaded two bring in a run, mimicking last night’s situation. Last night’s walks just happened to come at a moment with considerably more scrutiny.

In Game One, Lester didn’t have great command of his four-seam fastball, and with two outs and runner(s) on, he refused to give in to two dangerous hitters. A swinging bunt and a hit-by-pitch hurt him thereafter without giving up major damage.  We can’t say for sure that Lester wasn’t briefly distracted for two batters, and we won’t ever know the full extent of Lester’s emotions on the mound. That is some information we simply aren’t privy to. In attempting to answer the question posed by the title of the article, I would say maybe, but leaning towards no.