(670 The Score) After posting a 1.16 ERA in his first seven starts of the season, Cubs left-hander Jon Lester has seen his performance unravel recently.
Lester has been hammered in his past three starts, taking a loss in each while posting a 10.29 ERA across 14 innings. In that stretch, he's allowed he has allowed 25 hits and walked five while striking out 11.
Lester's trajectory has mirrored the Cubs rotation's as a whole, as they've posted a 8.50 ERA in the past seven games.
"He had such a good start to the season," pitching coach Tommy Hottovy said on the Mully & Haugh Show on Wednesday morning. "You're kind of seeing a stretch of some tough games. A lot of our staff went through some of that early. So you're kind of seeing Jon go through some of those similar things. And honestly, the way we've pitched the last week or 10 days, we've all kind of hit a little rough patch again. It's kind of getting back to simplifying things. Sometimes when you're going well and you're pitching well and you're rolling, you're focused on what you want to do every single day and the game plan and how you're attacking, and things come easier when things are going well. So it's really getting back to the grindstone and getting back to work on the things we want to focus on mechanically and then taking it over to the game and the game planning and the execution.
"One part of it with Jon -- and he'd be the first one to admit it too -- is we just haven't been able to limit some of the damage. It's been those innings where a couple weak hits or a couple bloop hits or a walk and a bloop, and then all of a sudden it's a double in the gap and two runs are scoring. We just got to get better at that as a group and kind of focus on that moving forward."
Hottovy believes a turnaround is coming soon.
"One thing as a group that's probably pretty consistent right now is we just have to make better pitches," Hottovy said. "We've made really good pitches that have just gotten put in play and found holes.
"There is a little bit of bad luck involved there, but what we haven't been able to do is just limit those innings. That's where that focus comes into play."
