Cliff Lee hasn't been as bad as his record sounds. He's 2-7 on the season with last night's loss to the Cardinals. The fact is that the Phillies offense doesn't score much when he is on the mound. Last night, the Phillies lost yet another game to the Cardinals, making their record a horrible 51-62 or 19.5 GB off the pace of the Washington Nationals.
The Phillies are still 12.0 GB in the Wild Card race, with about 6 weeks left in the season. We've seen very little from them that they have a run left in them. Ryan Howard has been particularly horrible at the plate in the last few weeks. No excuses from him, the fact that he came into this season in the middle of the year shouldn't have anything to do with that. These are major league players and playing baseball is their job and love of their life, and Howard just hasn't snapped out of the funk he's been in since the middle of last year.
Batters have been hitting Cliff Lee more than in previous years though. This season already, Cliff has given up 142 hits. Of those 142 hits, 19 have been for home runs. In 2011, there were 5 games when Cliff gave up 10 H or more during a game, but his record at the end of the season was 17-8 with a blistering 2.40 ERA as he stormed back to challenge Roy Halladay for the best pitching record on the team. This season, Lee has given up 10 hits or more 4 times with about 7 starts left in the season for him this year.
While I understand the man isn't getting run support, he obviously isn't as good as he was, and it is backed up by his statistics. Pretty much, Cliff Lee can do no wrong for the Phillies fan. At 34, I was frankly hoping we'd sell him high while he is still a decent pitcher and a #1 for anyone else.
ReplyDeleteUnlike Lee, Howard, who obviously is still struggling with his ankle (have you seen him try to run?) gets thrown under the bus. Every time.