ANAHEIM, Calif. – On the mound, the frustration was unavoidable. There were instances when Jon Lester’s pitches appeared to dart through the heart of the strike zone, only for home-plate ump Joe West to call them balls. There were other calls, as when first-base umpire appeared to miss a couple of calls at first base, that elevated not only Lester’s pitch-count but also his blood pressure.

Even so, after enduring a 5-0 defeat in Game 1 of the best-of-five American League Division Series against the Angels, Lester couldn’t lay blame for his defeat on the umpires. Nor did he feel like he had performed poorly. There was one pitch – one – where his execution was truly poor.

That, of course, came with two on and one out in the fifth, on a two-seam fastball that Lester intended to keep down to elicit a potential double-play grounder. But the left-hander left the 95 mph fastball up, and Torii Hunter destroyed the pitch, sending it crashing into Space Mountain beyond the fence in left-center for a three-run homer.

Lester was naturally dismayed by the execution and result of that pitch, but overall, he recognized that there was little he could do to alter the game’s outcome. On a night when Angels starter John Lackey was nothing short of dominant, Lester was left to shrug in the face of his defeat, and to hope that the series gets extended to the point where he might be asked to pitch in either Game 4 (on three days of rest) or Game 5 (on five days).

“It’s tough to say, but you have to tip your hat. Lackey threw the hell out of the ball tonight,” said Lester. “I was trying to execute a two-seamer down and away and it was more middle up and he put a good swing on it. … I felt like that was the right pitch to throw, trying to get a double play. I elevated it a little and he hit it out. What can you do?”

Lester’s stuff was strong, especially in the early innings, when he featured a mid- to upper-90s fastball, a cutter that got on the hands of right-handers and a swing-and-miss curveball. But it was a case in which the margin for error in the postseason became slim to non-existent, and so his one egregious mistake was punished unmercifully by Hunter.

“He’s one of the toughest lefties in the game. He had a lot going. The guy was throwing [a] 96, 95 mph fastball, cutter on your back leg as a right-hander. He was pretty tough, man,” said Hunter. “I was lucky or blessed that he threw a fastball down the middle, and I was able to capitalize on that mistake. Other than that, man, that guy’s filthy. You guys don’t want him, we’ll take him.”

Interestingly, the three-run homer represented the first time since May 26 that Lester had given up a homer with multiple runners on base. During the regular season, opponents had hit just .203 with a .546 OPS and two homers in 196 plate appearances with runners in scoring position.

While Lackey was the Angel who deserved the lion’s share of credit for sending Lester to a defeat, the Halos lineup also deserved its share of credit. In particular, Bobby Abreu – who drew three walks in as many plate appearances against Lester, and tied an ALDS record with four total walks in the game – helped his team to drive up the left-hander’s pitch count, and put him in position where a mistake would mean multiple runs.

Indeed, Abreu walked immediately in front of Hunter’s homer, and the outfielder was running on the pitch that was driven out of the park. Lester said that Abreu was not a distraction by taking off for second, but he did credit his opponent for his impact.

“The four walks not only would have led to the pitch count where Jon Lester had to work hard to get to that part of the game, but also [set] the table, passing the baton to [Hunter] or [Vladimir Guerrero] or whoever it’s going to be,” said Angels manager Mike Scioscia. “Bobby does that as well as anybody ever has. It was critical to our lineup to get somebody like that. That’s why we assigned Bobby. And tonight, not that he’s always going to go out there and draw four walks, but that’s the plate discipline that he has.

“Not only tonight, but for our whole season Bobby set a tone that I think has gone more than what his numbers show. He’s brought some great numbers to us: the on-base percentage, hitting [with] runners in scoring position, the amount of runs he’s scored, the amount he’s driven in, the way he’s run the bases. He’s brought a lot.

“But I think there’s some spillover to other players. I think that over the course of the season we had a lot of guys that were around Bobby that had terrific seasons, and that’s not an accident.”