NESN: Clinchy: Time For Jon Lester to Hope He’s Not the Next Matt Clement

Or as Dale Sams calls it..."Red Sox Myth #99: Matt Clement was a great pitcher for the Sox until he got beaned with a line-drive.”

Remember Matt Clement? The Red Sox signed Clement, then 30, to a three-year, $25.5 million contract to come to Boston in 2005, and at first, it paid off. Clement became an All-Star in the American League right away, going 10-2 with a 3.85 ERA and 97 strikeouts in his first half-season as a member of the Red Sox.

Then the unthinkable happened. On July 26, 2005, in the third inning of a game against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, Clement was hit squarely in the head by a line drive off the bat of Carl Crawford. He was strapped onto a stretcher, carried off the field and taken directly to a St. Petersburg, Fla., hospital.

Like Lester, Clement was poised to make his next start. And he did—but he gave up six runs to the lowly Royals. It was all downhill from there. The All-Star put up a 5.72 ERA in the second half of 2005, and less than a year later, he had pitched his final game in the major leagues. Clement was out of baseball at 31.

I bring this up not to make a direct connection between Clement and Jon Lester. Pitchers get hit by line drives all the time, and a liner to the leg is much less dangerous than one to the skull. But just the same, you have to worry about Lester’s confidence being shaken by the events of last Friday night.