When it looked like the Cubs might have a shot at making the playoffs in early August, there was much speculation as to who would start in the wild-card game—Jon Lester or Jake Arrieta.

Well, Arrieta quickly put that to rest with his Bob Gibson impersonation over the past two months.

But, as the Chicago Sun-Times’ Gordon Wittenmyer first reported, the Cubs were set on Arrieta long before his stuff became unhittable. It had to do with Lester’s inability to hold runners.

In a wonderful long-form piece about the Royals 2014 wild-card victory over the A’s and starter Lester, Andy McCullough of The Kansas City Star goes into great detail about the moment teams figured out Lester had the yips.

Here is an excerpt from that article:

Before the game, first-base coach Rusty Kuntz spoke with the hitters inside the ground-floor batting cages. He revealed a piece of intelligence that was hidden in plain sight and still difficult to fathom: Lester could not throw the baseball to first base. He had not attempted to do so in a game since April 30, 2013.

This knowledge would dog Lester throughout his next season after he signed as a free agent with the Cubs. But on that night in September, it was an open secret. Kansas City coaches and executives said they knew, fortified by the work of their advance scouting department. Most of the players said they had no idea, until a few received messages from friends around the sport.

“Guys were texting our guys that play them a lot, from the West, ‘You have to run. This guy will not throw to first base,’” Kuntz said.

“I think it was a hushed, not-talked-about subject in baseball,” Darling said. “But people who knew the game, had heard the whispers: He’s got the yips. He can’t really throw to first.”

The Royals ended up stealing three bases against Lester and pounded him for six earned runs in 7.1 innings. They went on to win the game 9-8 in 12 innings.

Don’t think for a moment Theo Epstein didn’t notice.