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| (Boston Herald Photo) |
The once-amicable negotiations between the Boston Red Sox and soon-to-be-free agent
Jon Lester have gone from "slam dunk" to "pause button" to (now) "the devil is in the details". That latter description was used by GM
Ben Cherington on
WEEI Radio today when asked to characterize the state of the talks. Apparently—if you read the tea leaves—the
Clayton Kershaw/
Max Scherzer contract experiences have moved the sides much further apart than they were at the outset. As
The Providence Journal's Brian MacPherson points out,
if Boston holds to—say—a five-year maximum, Lester may be pitching his last season at Fenway. Said Cherington,
"We want Jon Lester to be here. We will work as hard as we can to try to make that work. But there’s things that other teams might do that we just don’t do." It's that last sentence that is sending chills up and down
The Nation's collective spine.
