Boston Red Sox starter Jon Lester admits to drinking beer in the clubhouse, but he says it has nothing to do with the team's September swoon.

"There's a perception out there that we were up there getting hammered and that wasn't the case," Lester said, according to the Boston Globe. "Was it a bad habit? Yes. I should have been on the bench more than I was. But we just played bad baseball as a team in September. We stunk. To be honest, we were doing the same things all season when we had the best record in baseball."

A Globe report last week cited team sources as saying Lester, Josh Beckett and John Lackey drank beer, ate fried chicken and played video games in the clubhouse on days they weren't scheduled to pitch.

Lester did tell the paper "it was the wrong thing to do," saying "it was a ninth-inning rally beer. We probably ordered chicken from Popeye's like once a month. That happened. But that's not the reason we lost."

The Globe also cited a team source as saying the Red Sox were concerned about manager Terry Francona being distracted by marital woes and the use of painkillers. While Lester didn't address those specific claims, he did say that Francona leaving the team when he did might be for the best.