BEST LINE: Pinnacle +142

Posted at 11:40 AM EST

Jon Lester is 7-7 with an ERA of 3.33 after 14 starts. His surface stats are rather decent but his under the hood stats are showing signs of a collapse. Lester’s WHIP is 1.27, which is worse than the league average and his WHIP over his last five starts is much worse at 1.60. Lester’s cutter is no longer a reliable pitch (batters are mashing a 1.056 OPS against it) and the result is a declining batted ball profile of 40% groundballs, 24% line-drives and 36% fly-balls. Lester has thrown a lot of innings and a lot of pitches this season. His K rate is higher but it comes at the expense of more pitches per batter. Lester’s pitch counts in his first seven games were 104, 108, 113, 112, 118, 122 and 119. In his last start against the Tribe he threw 109 pitches and two starts ago he threw 112. Lester is being left in there a little too long and the fatigue and wear and tear on his arm is beginning to show. Pitching for a struggling Red Sox offense that scored one run on Kevin Correia last night and that has scored two runs or less in six of their last eight games, Lester and the Red Sox are way overpriced in this one.

The Phil Hughes narrative this past offseason was one of cautious optimism—not just that moving out of Yankee Stadium (and the AL East) would benefit him, but that his new home, Target Field, was ideally suited to his skill set. Is his 2014 improvement really that simple, or is there more to it?It doesn't take a deep dive into the world of advanced metrics to figure out what is driving Hughes' improvement this year. First, he has solved his gopheritis problem, while spiking his already-strong command into the stratosphere. The season-long numbers are impressive, but the scope of the improvement might be best represented in his game log. His first start of the season, in homer-friendly Chicago, looked like the same old Hughes: great command but done in by the HR ball. Not to venture too deep into psycho-analysis, but you can almost read the game log from there and imagine what Hughes experienced over the next few weeks. From Chicago, he went home to spacious Target Field for the first time and didn't allow a HR in either of his first two starts there. Armed with that confidence boost, he ventured to also-spacious Kansas City, and got his first win in a blowout. (Note: the HR he allowed that night was to Alcides Escobar, in the bottom of the 7th inning when Hughes had an 8-1 lead. As HR’s go, this one was about as inconsequential as you'll find.)

At that point, it looked like Hughes finally realized that he wasn't pitching in Yankee Stadium or the AL East anymore. In his six subsequent starts after Kansas City, Hughes pitched at home four times, at Petco (SD) and Comerica (Det) Parks once apiece. All pitcher-friendly venues to be sure, but venue alone can't account for all of his transformation. He has turned into a strike-throwing, hitter-challenging machine. And he's been consistently winning those challenges.Hughes has swapped his slider for more four-seam fastballs and cutters. His four-seam fastball has generated a high 11% swing and miss rate, the highest swinging strike rate against that pitch at any time in his career. Hughes is throwing all of his pitches effectively, he’s changing speeds and most importantly, he has his confidence back. In 13 starts covering 82.1 frames, Hughes has a remarkable BB/K split of 8/72. He has not walked a single batter in eight of his last nine starts and he’s surrendered three runs or less in nine of his past 10 starts. It’s now time to ditch your previous frustrations with Hughes and get on board because the dramatic improvement in his skills is not luck driven.