Maybe Jon Lester spent too much of his career in the American League.
There has been a lot of noise lately about an all-pitcher Home Run Derby, with the likes of Madison Bumgarner, Jose Fernandez and Lester's teammate, Jake Arrieta, pushing for pitchers to be involved in the annual long ball competition.
The Cubs left-hander, however, doesn't see eye-to-eye with his rotation mate, even if he does like the idea in principle.
"I think the aura behind it, and the idea behind it sounds cool," he told MLB Network Radio (via TheScore.com). "I don't really know if fans wanna see pitchers hit home runs. I don't know that."
Well, judging by the buzz generated when Mets starter Bartolo Colon went deep back in May, Lester may just be wrong.
Lester, 32, spent the majority of his career with the Red Sox under the AL's designated hitter rule. In his second year in the National League, the southpaw has just six hits in 146 career plate appearances and while he's certainly no Mike Trout up there and doesn't have any homers, he has two doubles.
Still, Lester insists his hesitance is more because of safety reasons than his skills (or lack thereof) at the dish.
"Everyone knows I'm not a great hitter," Lester, who has a .074 lifetime batting average said, "but if they did ask me to do the Home Run Derby and I did it and went out there and tweaked something and missed the next two, three or four starts, I just couldn't live with myself."
Lester called himself "selfish" for not wanting his teammates to get hurt, but was open to doing it sometime other than in the middle of the season.
"I'm not saying any of these guys are gonna get hurt," he said. "I just don't understand why would you wanna risk something just because you think it's cool."
Arrieta didn't appear to share the same sentiment as his teammate when joining Bumgarner in the movement.
"We both love to hit," Arrieta said of Bumgarner via NESN. "You talk to a lot of people who don't like pitchers to hit, but we love it. We take it really seriously. We're in the cage hitting, we're actually trying to work on things. We have the ability to help ourselves out. I'm not going up there trying to make an out."
Lester is fine with keeping his attention on pitching, which thus far has been working out for him. The left-hander is 8-3 this season and ranks third in the majors with a 1.89 ERA for a Cubs team that enters Tuesday with an MLB-best 44-19 record.
So you won't see Lester pining to enter the batter's box when the MLB presents the Home Run Derby on July 11 at Petco Park in San Diego.
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