Lester's comeback provides a dose of feel-good reality

	Even in Cleveland, Red Sox fans had a hearty greeting for Jon Lester for his first start of the season on Monday. AP
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Take heart, weary sports fans. There is good news in your morning newspaper, if you can get past the referee betting scandal in the NBA, the Bad Newz about Michael Vick contributing to the rogue state that is the NFL, steroids in golf and Barry Bonds trying to become the all-time home run champion under the threat of a federal indictment.

Check out Monday night's Red Sox-Indians box score. The starting pitcher for Boston was Jon Lester, a 23-year-old left-hander who 11 months ago heard doctors tell him he had an illness called anaplastic large cell lymphoma. Cancer. Treatable, the doctors told him, but a blood cancer nonetheless.

"It just floored the entire organization," Red Sox GM Theo Epstein says. "And yet the ones who consistently have shown the most maturity and understanding throughout all this have been Jon and his family. It's an amazing story. It happened at a time when as an organization we were feeling sorry for ourselves, with injuries and getting swept five game by the Yankees. It's a cliche, I know, but this really puts things in perspective."

In that box score Jon Lester, who gave up two runs over six innings with his parents watching from the stands, is listed as the winning pitcher. But you knew that already.

Yes, he is a cancer survivor. But last night was the start toward Lester getting his baseball career, if not his life, back to the everyday challenges and triumphs he worried about before he ever heard the words "anaplastic large cell lymphoma." He can sweat the small stuff again, like trying to locate cutters against the Indians, the AL's leading home-run hitting team, or trying to stay with the Red Sox for good.

The reality is that Lester seems to be a two-start placeholder for Curt Schilling, who is due off the disabled list in 10 days, before Lester likely goes back to Triple-A. (Lester actually replaced Julian Tavarez, whose usefulness in the rotation expired five starts ago, going 0-4 with a 7.71 ERA since.) Maybe Lester can pitch so well that he forces Boston to keep him. That's exactly what Kason Gabbard has done. In any event, Lester and Clay Buchholz, 22, the pitcher the Red Sox drafted in 2005 with their compensation pick for losing Pedro Martinez, are likely to have a say in Boston's pennant drive sooner or later. (Buchholz could pitch out of the bullpen in September.)

"The best we've seen Jon Lester was the summer of 2005 in Double-A," Epstein says. "He was throwing 92-93 [mph], hitting 95 and even 96 when he had to and with an unhittable cutter. We fully believe that's still the pitcher he is, and as he continues to put some distance from his illness, you'll see that pitcher."

The Red Sox drafted Lester in the second round, with the 57th overall pick, in 2002, a draft famed for Oakland's picks as chronicled in the book Moneyball but also an important draft of pitchers (especially left-handed pitchers) as baseball weaned itself off steroids and home runs.