For Cubs' Lester and Contreras, it's all about repetition
MESA, Ariz. - Left-hander Jon Lester comes to Chicago Cubs spring training with a lot of credibility.
He won two World Series with the Boston Red Sox before being the staff ace of last year's world-championship Cubs team.
Still, Lester has some things to work on this spring. His personal catcher, David Ross, has retired, and Lester will spend the spring getting used to working with young catcher Willson Contreras.
"I think whoever it was, just being able to throw to him," Lester said Friday. "That's what it comes down to. Rossy and I just didn't jump in and all of a sudden click. It took a few starts for us to kind of hammer some things out and him getting used to some things I like to do and vice versa. I think that's all it really comes down to, is just pitching, time on the mound, time behind the plate.
"Willson is a smart kid and he cares and he wants to get better. He's eager to please. I think he has all the attributes to be a really good catcher in this league for a long time. I don't think there's going to be much of a learning curve."
Lester also spent significant time on a back field Friday working on fielding grounders and throwing to first base, and also on throwing to first on pickoff attempts. Throwing after fielding and pickoff throws has been a problem for Lester through much of his career, but he and Ross were able to limit opposing teams' running games the past two years with the Cubs.
"I've been pretty open about it since Day 1," Lester said. "I'm not the one who keeps bringing it up, other than that joke (he made about it on Twitter). It is what it is. It's nothing to hide from. It's there. I'll just keep worrying about throwing it 60 feet, 6 inches."
Manager Joe Maddon had an interesting perspective on it.
"Sometimes we get caught up in dealing with what we don't do well, and while you're doing that you don't really reinforce what you do well," Maddon said. "I made the point that I want you to continue to work on what you do well as a pitcher. Of course, address those items that aren't your strong point but not to the point where you get so obsessed with it that takes away from what you do well. I think for a while there, that's what happened.
"John is so good at throwing the ball from the rubber to the plate that I don't want anything to get in the way of that."
Back behind the plate:
Kyle Schwarber took one session as a catcher Friday, working with pitcher John Lackey. The Cubs are going to ease Schwarber into catching in the wake of his recovery from last April's knee surgery.
"Of course he wanted to do more, and we said no," said Joe Maddon. "Yeah, that was planned, on one knee primarily."
Schwarber will get most of his reps in left field this spring while working one or two days behind the plate.
The quote:
Joe Maddon came up with this one when talking about getting work in during spring training: "There are still a lot of days left in February, which is a compliment to February because it's so short."