Sports Redux: Jon Lester's Confidence Needs Boosting

"I gave up five runs,,,what else is there to say about it?" Not the words of a confident pitcher.

Sure, you can look at the glass as being half-full, and say that other than leaving a pitch hanging over the plate for Justin Morneau to smack a three-run homer, Jon Lester wasn't all that bad. But we don't deal in half-full here in Boston, so we're equally concerned about the two other guys Jon Lester put on base, and the two other runs he gave up in last night's 5-2 loss in Minnesota. And about Lester's ERA, which has bubbled over six. "You can work as hard as you want, watch as much film as you want, you still have to go and execute pitches and get people out," he said, and for some reason, it's not working.

Terry Francona, as you'd expect, is offering public words of encouragement for his young lefty. "I guess I feel like he's so much closer to being real good and dominant than he is to the five-run inning." And the captain of the Titanic missed all the icebergs but one, but we know what he's saying. Tito did resolve one issue with another Sox player whose confidence is shot, dropping David Ortiz to sixth in the order last night. Papi responded with a 1-for-3 with a double, so we'll see what happens next. Jacoby Ellsbury went 2-for-5, so his hitting streak is at 21.

It's tempting to say "that could have been us" - wrong, but tempting - as the Orlando Magic, in their continuing effort to make us eat our disdainful words, have the heavily-favored Cavs on the ropes after last night's 116-114 OT victory. One more win and Orlando, its much maligned coach Stan Van Gundy, and the apparently unpopular Hedo Turkoglu are in the Finals. As long as we're playing what-ifs, we also can't help but wonder if the Bruins would have put in more of an appearance in the Eastern Finals than Carolina, who got swept off the face of the earth by Pittsburgh last night. We think, "yes".