Jon Lester misses start with 'dead arm,' says it's no big deal

MESA, Ariz. – It's March and he said he's not hurt, not in any pain, just weary, and yet Jon Lester, the Chicago Cubs' $155 million investment/hero, skipped a spring training start on Saturday, so, yeah, everybody under your beds.

The sky falls so often on the North Side they carry iron umbrellas. (Not to be confused with the hardhats, which are for the endless Wrigley renovation.) Given the history, given the occasional promise that always – every single time – mutates into something that must be chained to a post in the basement, the news that Lester's schedule would be even slightly altered surely led to some squishy moments on the El.

"Of course there's going to be a lot of [public] consternation," Cubs manager Joe Maddon allowed.

The background is, Lester experiences degrees of what baseball folks call "dead arm" every spring. Typically, he said, it sets in early in camp, when he's just ramping into full effort or in the first couple weeks of the regular season, when he's ramping into 100-pitch outings. (In fact, the highest monthly WHIPs and lowest monthly strikeout-to-walk ratios of his career have come in April. So, that.) He was going along fine this spring, pitched efficiently in two starts, got clobbered by the San Diego Padres on Monday, and then Friday it was decided he would not make Saturday's start against the Seattle Mariners.

Maddon said Lester's condition was routine, and it is routine in that many pitchers in particular complain of similar physiological lifelessness at some point during camp. He said no one was concerned that Lester could be injured or could be becoming injured, including Lester. No big deal, he said.

Lester arrived Saturday morning in khaki shorts and flip flops, changed into a blue T-shirt that read, "Let's play two!" across the front, and said none of this was a big deal.

"I don't think it's anything to be concerned about," he said. "There's no pain. There's no worry. There's no anything on anybody's part.

"I don't really feel like anything. More a total body deadness."

It speaks, perhaps, to our raging pitcher phobia that total body deadness is preferable to the many alternatives.

On the other hand, Lester said that in spite of his many dalliances with the dead-arm syndrome, he couldn't recall ever missing a start because of it. He has been durable, having made at least 31 starts in the past seven seasons. That, along with his being a very good pitcher, is the reason the emerging Cubs went to six years and $155 million for him, and why they've wrapped this pitching staff around him for at least that long.

No one seemed to think the short pause would interfere with Lester's April 5 opening night start at Wrigley against the St. Louis Cardinals. Lester is due to throw a bullpen session Monday and then resume his spring Thursday night against the Los Angeles Angels.

"No, no, no, no," Lester said when asked about this leaking into the regular season. "Like I said, I don't think – I know – it's not a big thing. Normal process of pitching. For me. … I'll kind of regenerate a little bit and get ready for Thursday."

On that schedule, Lester would make two more spring starts. He said he believed it would be enough to be fully prepared, as did Maddon. There was no sense pushing him through a series of pitches in which he was searching for velocity or spin, Maddon said.

"The arm, basically, you don't feel anything coming out of your hand," he said. "Nothing's really awful, but your arm doesn't work like it normally does. It doesn't hurt. It just doesn't want to react."

While few seem to be willing – or able – to put a word with what ails Lester and the rest, the Cubs are hoping to avoid any ailments there are words for.

So, call it precautionary. Call it the long view. Call it smart. Call it routine. But everybody here – and back there – will feel a lot better when he's up and pitching again.