I don’t like the Philadelphia Phillies, but even i can respect what Cliff Lee has done in June. I wouldn’t say “hate” when speaking about how I feel about the Phillies like I would when referring to the New York Yankees or Dallas Cowboys, but as a life-long fan of the Atlanta Braves and a burgeoning Washington Nationals fan now that my hometown has the team, the Phillies are the team who are a significant deterrent to my baseball teams getting to the playoffs.
With their assembled pitching staff, they’re showing signs of trying to buy championships too reminiscent of the Yankees. But for some reason I don’t dislike Cliff Lee.
When I heard tonight that Cliff Lee had pitched his third-straight complete game shutout, I was excited for the feat unlike how I would’ve felt had it been CC Sabathia or A.J. Burnett. I found myself wanting to share his statistics with the GuysNation community.
The feat doesn’t just include the past three complete games. He started his first game of the month on June 6th, when the Phillies hosted the Dodgers. He “scattered” 7 hits over 7 innings but didn’t allow an earned run.
When the Cubs visited the city of Brotherly Love on the 11th, he went 8 innings and allowed one run.
Florida made the trip to Philly and faced Lee on the 16th, who recorded the first of his three complete game shutouts, a string which also includes wins at St Louis on the 22nd and tonight’s game when the Phillies hosted Boston.
One earned run over 42 innings pitched. No more than 2 walks in any of those games.
And to think, just before starting that string of games, on the last day of May he lost to the Washington Nationals, letting up 6 runs in 5.1 innings.
