Jake Arrieta was the NL’s pitcher of the month back in April, and another Chicago Cubs starter takes the honor for June:
Congratulations to @JLester34, NL Pitcher of the Month for June! pic.twitter.com/xVQjzasHVf
— Chicago Cubs (@Cubs) July 2, 2016
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Being that there are only six regular season months, that’s pretty awesome that the Cubs have already claimed two of them.
That 1.41 ERA in June, by the way, was bettered only by Carlos Martinez … who pitched 10 fewer innings. Lester also posted a solid 3.25 FIP and 3.02 xFIP in the month.
If you dig into the advanced stats, there’s probably an argument that Jose Fernandez could have gotten the nod (his pitching line – 1.67/1.20/1.76 – blew away the field, as did his 42.0% K rate), but he made only four starts in the month. Doing what Lester did over six starts was even more impressive. Only Max Scherzer (1.96/2.43/2.63) was in Lester’s range of performance among NL starters who made six starts.
Congrats to Jon Lester, who will likely find himself soon named an NL All-Star, too. For all the hand-wringing about the Cubs’ performance in June, imagine how it might have been if Lester hadn’t been so good.
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