By the time he sat down at a postgame press conference, John Lackey still could not conjure a reason he had pitched so poorly for the Boston Red Sox on Monday night:
"I can't explain it, man. That's the best I've felt warming up in the bullpen all year. ... I don't know what the hell happened.
"I'm glad we won, for sure. I mean, obviously. Yeah, I'm pretty frustrated. I don't know what to tell you."
Press conferences usually come after a 10-minute or so "cooling-off" period so athletes and coaches can get their head together. It's often a useful interval after a tough loss. And it's a good thing it exists, because at the moment manager Terry Francona took him out of the game, Lackey looked ready to bite the head off an orphaned puppy.
Lackey stared down his skipper as he came with the hook ? for a solid 10 seconds ? apparently incredulous that Francona would dare remove him having allowed eight runs over 4 1/3 innings. The nerve of some people!
Lackey didn't speak, but it's as though his eyes said, "You talkin' to me?" like Travis Bickle in the famous scene from "Taxi Driver." Not that Lackey was about to go off the deep end to that extent. Probably.
Watch an animation of Lackey's big-time staredown
O-KAAAAAAAAAAAAAY.
At least Lackey didn't get all "nasty" like Yankees right-hander A.J. Burnett, who claimed he "wasn't allowed" to get through the fifth inning of his start because of a managerial conspiracy or some such nonsense. By the time he met the press, Lackey was contrite:
"First inning, I was definitely missing some locations. Probably overthrowing it a little bit because I felt pretty good. After that, I mean, you're going to have to go back and look at some of those pitches and look at what happened. Just look at the line score."
[Editor's note: Ohmygosh, I looked at the line score! I wouldn't want to own that, either.]
Lackey's ERA, already the worst in the league, rose to 6.49. He has allowed 198 hits in 154 innings for a .310 opponent's batting average. He signed a free-agent contract for $82.5 million before the 2010 season that runs through 2014 (with a vesting option for '15). He turns 33 years old next month.
BLS h/t: The incomparable @richardiurilli and the irrepressible @firstheart42
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