While that about sums it up, let's go a little more in-depth.
Here's what John Lackey did well tonight:
- Showed great passion in shouting angrily at Carl Crawford when the left fielder failed to catch a ball hit off the top of the wall that everyone watching thought was probably gone.
- Kept David Cooper from breaking the game wide open with the bases loaded by walking him on five pitches.
So yeah, he was pretty good at that.
In case you haven't quite picked up on it yet, there were no redeeming factors to John Lackey tonight. None. Zilch. Nada. He had two different pitches tonight. One was a meatball so pathetic that singles could be seen as blessings, and the other was absolutely unhittable, but only because nobody in their right mind would think of swinging at it.
He did not do it with class. It was not a gritty performance where he sucked it up for the pen and the good of the team. John Lackey was simply terrible, to the point where his spot in the rotation should come into question.
The good news? Adrian Gonzalez hit a home run again. He almost went long in the first inning, too, but ended up with just a double. David Ortiz also stayed hot, connecting for a bomb of his own, while Carl Crawford picked up two hits.
The bad news? Jacoby Ellsbury's hitting streak was snapped, and it's starting to look like it's a futile exercise for Dustin Pedroia to even step up to the plate these days.
And, of course, John Lackey.
Terrible, terrible John Lackey.