Does the reigning AL Cy Young winner Cliff Lee get enough respect?
He doesn’t have CC Sabathia‘s 7-year, $161 million contract. He doesn’t have a signature pitch like Johan Santana‘s change-up. And he doesn’t have the strikeout ability of Tim Lincecum.
But what he does have — that those big-name pitchers don’t — is a signature performance on the biggest stage in baseball.
Lee became the first pitcher in World Series history with 10 Ks, no walks and no earned runs in the Phillies’ Game 1 victory.
More impressively, he did it against the best offense in baseball, on the road, in a ballpark where fly ball outs turn into home runs in the right-field upper deck.
After Alex Rodriguez seemed to crush everything in sight in his first two series, Lee struck out the Yankees third baseman three times and controlled the rest of the high-powered New York lineup.
“When a guy comes out like that, you tip your cap and move on,” Rodriguez said.
Lee pitched one of the best games in World Series history. So why isn’t his name anywhere in the discussion of baseball’s best pitcher?
Lee, 31, is somewhat of a late bloomer. He was not a highly-touted prospect entering the draft and didn’t break into the Indians’ full-time rotation until 2004 when he was already 25 years old.
He had a great 2005 season, finishing fourth in the AL Cy Young voting, but struggled the following two years — battling a groin injury in 2007. He pieced it back together in 2008, going 22-3 with a 2.54 ERA for an Indians’ team that finished 81-81.
Lee’s 3-0 record and 0.54 ERA this postseason shows that he belongs among baseball’s elite.
Not bad for a guy that was seen as the consolation prize in the Roy Halladay Sweepstakes.
