The Fantastic PhilLee

You know it's a boring day in the world of sports when one of ESPN's headlines is that Nazr Mohammed agreed to re-sign with the Thunder. This is the slowest season of sports for a reason. Nonetheless, there is some appealing news in baseball. South Carolina beat Florida for its second consecutive College World Series title with a 5-2 win in Game 2 yesterday. In the MLB, there's basically nothing new with the Dodgers, but Phillies pitcher Cliff Lee is on fire right now and showed it last night. When Philadelphia pursued Lee this offseason, they knew it would be worth it. Lee started off 4-5 after two months with an ERA of just under 4.00, a minor cause for concern, but has stayed strong and confident. As a result, he's now pitching lights out for the 50-win Phillies, who have the best record in baseball.

We all knew that the former Cy Young Award winner would come back, but I don't know if people thought he would go on a tear like this. Lee has been fairly inconsistent throughout his career, with a 5-8 record in 2007 before his Cy Young year and a 14-13 record in 2009. However, it doesn't seem too surprising that he would bounce back from a rough April and May in a big way. He's been known to do this: right when you think the lefty's not pitching his best, he'll come back and go eight or nine innings and allow a run or less. Let me give you a few stats for Lee's month of June: 5-0 record, a 0.21 ERA in 42 innings, a 2-1 inning-to-hit ratio, 32 straight scoreless innings and three straight complete-game shutouts. The most recent one? A two-hitter against the Red Sox, who lead the league in batting average and are second in runs scored. Lee is the first Phillies pitcher to throw three consecutive shutouts in over 60 years. He's been so good this month that he's even driven in more runs from the plate than he's allowed on the mound! Fans across the country looked at this matchup as a possible World Series preview, and if it ends up being the case, it doesn't look favorable for Red Sox fans. At least not if Lee is pitching like this. We'll see if he can keep it up, but unlike any other team in baseball, Philadelphia has the luxury of having two to three (depending on Cole Hamels' performances) other starters who are capable of putting the team on their back. If Lee keeps pitching like this or even close to it, the rest of the National League will have a hard time keeping the Phillies out of their third World Series in the last four years.