Cliff Lee making postseason history

So now that we have this time to ourselves as we wait for the American League to finish up, maybe we can reflect a little on the 2009 postseason. That is if we can remember what happened—the first two series happened so quickly that it felt like it passed in a blur. However, that Sunday game in Denver where Ryan Howard crushed that two-out double in the ninth after walking up and down the dugout and pleading with his teammates to, Just get me to the plate, boys,” seems like a year ago.

Have only two weeks gone by since that game? That’s it?

Nevertheless, while perusing the Internets this afternoon I stumbled across a post on the Yahoo! Big League Stew blog regarding Cliff Lee’s performance in Game 3 of the NLCS. That was the one where the Phillies scored so many runs that Charlie Manuel was forced to take Lee out of the game headed into the ninth inning because he was way too good for the Dodgers to handle.

Actually, that’s not entirely true, but it’s based in truth. Because Lee had been so dominant and the Phillies had tacked on more runs in the bottom of the eighth to make it 11-0, Lee had to come out. Call it the Phillies’ version of the mercy rule.

Still, Lee’s pitching line speaks for itself. He went eight innings and allowed three hits without a walk to go with 10 strikeouts and no runs on 114 pitches, and that was enough.

In fact, according to the Bill James invention that stat geeks like so much called “Game score,” Lee’s outing in Game 3 was the best pitched outing by a Phillies in the postseason, ever.

No joke.

Lee’s “game score” was 86, which is based on a scale of 100. According to Big League Stew, game score is described thusly:

Game Score is a metric devised by Bill James that attempts to index how good a start is, by rewarding the pitcher for innings pitched and strikeouts, and penalizing them for hits, walks, and runs allowed. It more or less operates on a 100-point scale — 0 is atrocious, 100 is tremendous, 50 is average, and scores below zero or above 100 are almost unheard of.

A score of 86 is pretty darned good. In fact, only 45 postseason starts since 1903 rated higher than the one Lee put out there in Game 3. Not on the list was the five-hit, 147-pitch shutout by Curt Schilling in Game 5 of the 1993 World Series. That game rated only an 80.

Otherwise, the Phillies are absent from the top 50 pitching performances based on the “game score.” That goes for games pitched against them, too. Joe Niekro tossed 10 shutout innings against the Phillies in the 1980 NLCS, but that was good for just an 81. In the 1915 World Series, Hall of Fame pitchers Grover Cleveland Alexander for the Phillies went up against Rube Foster, Dutch Leonard and Babe Ruth of the Red Sox and only Foster’s 85 in Game 2 came close.

Interestingly, in the 1915 World Series the Red Sox used just three pitchers in the five games and the Phillies used just four hurlers, including the only reliever in the series.

The only other Phillie to crack the top 50? Try Cole Hamels in Game 1 of the 2008 NLDS. Remember that one? Hamels got an 86 by tossing a two-hitter through eight scoreless innings with a walk and nine strikeouts. Yet even with the two-hitter going through eight innings and with 101 pitches thrown, Manuel went to Brad Lidge in the ninth with a four-run lead.

I’m still curious about that.

Anyway, here is where the “Game score” thing is flawed. It doesn’t take the magnitude of the game or the human element of the actual game into consideration. For instance, when I think of the best pitched games I’ve ever seen, the top one on the list is Jack Morris in Game 7 of the 1991 World Series against the Braves. For 10 innings Morris hung up zero after zero only to be matched by John Smoltz and two relievers.

Apparently 10 shutout innings in a 1-0 seventh game of the World Series the day after the winning team won Game 6 in the 12^th inning on Kirby Puckett’s homer is only good enough for an 84.

Don Larsen’s perfect game in the 1956 World Series? That’s only a 94 and three games rated higher. Roger Clemens’ one-hitter against Seattle in the 2000 ALCS is the top-ranked game, followed by an 11-inning three-hit shutout by Dave McNally of Baltimore against the Twins in Game 2 of the 1969 ALCS.

A 25-year-old rookie for Billy Martin’s Twins named Chuck Manuel had a pretty good seat on the bench for McNally’s gem.

No. 3 on the list is a 14-inning effort by Babe Ruth of the Red Sox against Brooklyn in Game 2 of the 1916 World Series. The Red Sox beat the Dodgers for their second straight World Series title that year.

So there’s the historical perspective on Cliff Lee’s effort in Game 3 of the NLCS. Apparently there haven’t been too many better pitched games in the history of the postseason. However, it’s more difficult to find pitchers who had better cumulative postseasons than Lee has had this year. In three starts he’s allowed two earned runs over 24 1/3 innings. In 1967 Bob Gibson gave up three runs in 27 innings, but all of his starts were in the World Series.

Let’s see where Lee ranks on the all-time list of great postseasons when this is all over. Chances are he has (at least) two more starts to go.

The Big Piece

ATLANTA – OK, let’s take a break from all the injury talk and bullpen question marks for a day… or at least until J.C. Romero and Scott Eyre complete their bullpen sessions on Saturday. And then there is the issue of Carlos Ruiz’s sprained wrist suffered on a play at the plate during the second inning on Friday night.

Oh, and J.A. Happ came out of the game after three innings because Jimmy Rollins and Chase Utley saw him grimace after a play and alerted Charlie Manuel. Needless to say, Happ wasn’t too pleased about coming out of the game.

“There was a lot of debate and I lost,” Happ said after the game, adding that his argument to stay in the game included a lot of nodding and telling anyone who would listen that he was OK. “It seems like the player always loses those debates.”

But what about Ryan Howard? After all, for the second straight game he got drilled by a pitch on the same exact spot on the right forearm.

What are the odds of that happening?

“Probably pretty high and I beat them,” Howard laughed.

Ruiz’s injury as well as the injuries to the relief pitchers is of the most concern to Manuel, who believes Happ will take the ball in his next start. As far as Howard goes, well, those two shots to the forearm should have felt like nothing more than a bee sting to the big fella.

Make that, “The Big Piece,” as Manuel calls him.

“He’s all right,” Manuel said. “What did I tell you about getting hurt? Don’t be getting hurt. That’s three feet from Ryan’s heart. He ain’t dead by a long shot. If I had arms that big, hell, a baseball wouldn’t hurt me.”

It’s more like the other way around. Howard has been the one hurting the baseball these days. Actually, make that a lot of days since it appears as if The Big Piece is well on his way to becoming the most prolific slugger in team history.

Friday night’s pair of homers made Howard the first Phillie ever to bash 40 in four different seasons. And not only did Howard hit his 40^th homer for the fourth season, but he did it with panache.

For Howard it’s 40 homers AND 120 RBIs in four straight seasons. Not only hasn’t a Phillie ever pulled off such a feat, but very few Major Leaguers have accomplished it. In fact, Howard became just the fourth member of the club on Friday night at Turner Field.

The Big Piece joins Babe Ruth, Ken Griffey Jr. and Sammy Sosa as the only sluggers in Major League Baseball history to slug 40 homers and drive in at least 120 RBIs in four straight seasons. That’s it.

But get this, only one other hitter accomplished the 40-120 trick in more than four straight seasons and that was The Sultan of Swat himself. The Babe did it in seven straight.

Here’s the amazing stat for Howard – in 717 career games, he has 620 RBIs. That comes to an average of 140 RBIs per 162 games, which is the career high of Hall of Famers Harmon Killebrew and Jim Rice.

And that’s Howard’s average.

There’s more to consider, too. Howard doesn’t turn 30 until November 19, he never drove in more than 149 RBIs in a season which points to his uncanny consistency. However, the numbers that really stand out are the splits from August, September (and October) from the Big Piece.

Check this out: 91 of Howard’s 217 career homers have come in the last two months of the season. Additionally, 254 of his 620 career RBIs have come in the last months, too. That means Howard feasts on pitching late in the season when the games take on added significance.

Enjoy it folks… sluggers like this Howard kid don’t come around that often.

Steppin' out

NEW YORK – Finally out of the house/hospital now that the ol’ girl was discharged after the appendectomy and a bout with pneumonia. Pretty fun week for her to say the least. Now all she has to do is sit tight and rest up for the next week or so, which should be no problem considering she has two boys under the age of five running around the joint as well as a guy like me chasing around a baseball team. I followed one up to the South Bronx today and left her to fend for herself. Strangely, the drive to the Bronx moved like clockwork from the PA Turnpike to the NJ Turnpike over the GW Bridge and then past the old Yankee Stadium to the new one. Piece of cake. It seemed like it took just five minutes to get from the EZ-Pass lane at the GW to get to the ballpark.

It was such a snap that it makes one wonder why the Mets don’t move their little ballpark out of Queens and closer to civilization. There’s a spare ballpark just across the way from the new Yankee Stadium. Maybe they ought to look into it…

Oh, and speaking of the new Yankee Stadium, it’s nice. It’s just like the old one only bigger and more expensive. Everything about the joint is top of the line from the food in the press dining room to the wide concourses to the grass on the field.

Hell, the players say that the dining area in the visitors’ clubhouse is bigger than the one they have at Citizens Bank Park.

Basically, everything everyone else from the Philly media has written about the new Yankee Stadium is right on the money. It’s nice – really nice… but did they really need to build it? One billion dollars is a lot of money to go spending on a ballpark in the poorest Congressional district in the country even when times are flush.

Yes, it’s a fantastic ballpark. Maybe even one of the best… but I still like the old one better.

*

Speaking of the Yankees and the old ballpark, Babe Ruth hit his last home runs on May 25, 1935 in Pittsburgh while playing for the Boston Braves. In that game Ruth famously clubbed homers Nos. 712, 713 and 714 in that game.

Five days later at the Baker Bowl against the Phillies, the Babe grounded out and walked off the field never to play again. Incidentally, the Baker Bowl was located on the corner of Broad and Lehigh in North Philly. There’s a gas station there now, but no plaque or reminder that Babe Ruth played his last game ever on the same spot you can gas up for $2.34 a gallon.

Historically hot

So yeah, Raul Ibanez is swinging a hot bat lately. The homers in four straight games and the 10 this month and seven in the last 10 days is a pretty good indicator of Ibanez’s hotness. But did you really know how hot Ibanez is? Try historically hot. Like hotter than Babe Ruth hot.

How so?

Well, according to the good folks at Baseball-Reference, only seven players in history have three 100-RBI seasons at ages 34, 35 and 36. They are Babe Ruth, Stan Musial, Andres Galarraga, Paul O’Neil, Rafael Palmeiro, Gary Sheffield and Ibanez.

Ibanez, with a league-leading 42 RBIs in 41 games is well on his way to getting another 100-plus RBI season to join an even more rare group.

Only Babe Ruth, Paul O’Neil, Rafael Palmeiro and Andres Galarraga drove in 100 RBIs during the seasons in which they were 34, 35, 36 and 37. Ruth, Palmeiro and Galarraga added their 38^th years to the list, too, with “The Big Cat,” the only man to do it from ages 34-to-39.

Could Ibanez go as long as Galarraga? Sure, why not… he is signed with the Phillies for the next two seasons, so he’ll get his chances in hitter-friendly CBP.

Wearing the suit

There's just something about Curt Schilling that just doesn't fit. Maybe it's the baseball uniform that makes him look unusually pale, dowdy and frumpy as if he were househusband from the Indianapolis suburbs. Surely Major League Baseball teams not only have the best and most artistic tailors on their staffs, but also hire stylists and Naomi Wolf to turn them all into the ultimate alpha-males covered in the latest fashions. You know, like that guy Tom Cruise.

But since it's baseball and it attracts C-list celebrities on crappy Fox shows, Tom Cruise is nowhere to be found. It's more like that dude in the show "House," who, truth be told, always looks like he's a bit peeved about having to be on a show on Fox.

What are you going to do?

If you're Curt Schilling you just pull on that uniform and deal with it. Oddly enough, though, Schilling's Red Sox uniform is easily the most flattering. When he played for the Phillies, whose current unis debuted in 1992 and are becoming more and more tired looking that those ‘70s-styled maroon jobs that made Luzinski look like Philip Seymour Hoffman in a velvet shirt in Boogie Nights, Schilling looked as if he should be playing softball on a diamond behind the Holiday Inn on Packer Ave.

But doughy, stick-legged Curt with his body that he described as a "family curse," really fooled with horizontal hold on TV sets across the country when he forced his trade to Arizona. With the Diamondbacks (the worst nickname in the game... just switch it to Snakes already) and their vest jerseys and purple pinstripes, Schilling looked as if he was set to audition as a reptile for a children's television show. Or worse, those Arizona uniforms made Schilling look as if he was a purple bowtie and cummerbund away from a gig as an overfed male exotic dancer working in strip malls across the Rust Belt. I don't know what his full stage name would be, though I'm pretty sure he might use the nom de guerre "Dash" in there somewhere. Like "Dash Fastball," or maybe "Curty Dash," or something like that. I don't know how they come up with that stuff.

But yes, it's a good thing he can throw a baseball.

It's good that Schilling can throw a baseball because when he really puts on a bowtie and a cummerbund to go be seen at some ridiculousness like the ESPYs, a Dungeon & Dragons convention or a Bush rally; he can entertain us all by looking like the party crasher. You know, the guy with the look that says it's just a matter of time before someone taps him on the shoulder and says, "Dude, you're in over your head. Let's go get you a trailer, a pair of cut-offs, a pack of Marlboros and a Kenny Chesney CD. Do you like the Olive Garden?"

Instead, he shows up, does his thing then shrugs his shoulders as if to say, "can you believe my life?" before stopping off on the way home to get the best Asian massage ever.

God bless that Curt Schilling. God bless him because he walked off the mound at Fenway in potentially his last game ever with the Red Sox having put them just 11 outs away from taking a 2-0 lead in the World Series over the Colorado Rockies. It would put the Red Sox two chilly night wins in Denver away from wrapping up their second World Series title in the last four seasons.

And certainly dowdy, gabby Curt would be more than an integral part of that. Imagine that - two World Series victories with the Boston Red Sox... the last pitcher to do that was Babe Ruth.

Babe Ruth and Curt Schilling... talk about style.

Speaking of the Red Sox, get this. My oldest son is 42 months old and could live in a world where the Red Sox have won two of the four World Series played in his lifetime. One of the other two was won by the White Sox, whose previous title was in 1917. My grandmother is going on 90 and she has been on this earth for the same number of White and Red Sox Series titles as my 3½-year old.

That's weird, wild stuff.

*** Here's one that I found in the Rocky Mountain Sports magazine newsletter the other day:

Comcast Colorado in Denver CEO, Scott Binder, won the title for 2007 Fittest CEO in the World in the CEO Ironman Challenge World Championship in Kona. Binder beat out 12 other CEOs who earned their spot to Kona at one of six CEO Ironman Challenge qualifying events held around the world.

I have to admit I'm a little jealous because I'd love to properly train for an Ironman. That would be so much fun. However, I have no interest in being a CEO or the boss of anything. My ego would be satisfied with just an Ironman... that's enough.

Bonds to chase Babe in Philly?

Here's this weeks edition of my column for the CSN E-mail blast. To subscribe for the blast, click here.

The next week is shaping up to be one of the more memorable weekends in Philadelphia sports in quite some time. At least from a national perspective, that is.

Aside from the potential Game 7 for the Flyers in the opening round playoff series against the Buffalo Sabres, as well as the afterglow of a strong draft for the beloved Eagles, the Phillies’ games and Citizens Bank Park could be in the national spotlight.

Huh? A 10-14 team struggling with its relief pitching and nearly every other aspect of the game – how are they going to find anything more than the ire of a handful of folks that call into sports radio shows?

It’s not them, it’s someone else. Like Bonds.

Barry Bonds.

With the dramatic, ninth-inning homer he slugged off former Phillie Billy Wagner last week, Barry Bonds, baseball’s Public Enemy No. 1, stands at 711 home runs in his now checkered big league career. Whether or not Bonds slugged the majority of those homers with the aid of illegal substances remains an issue for former U.S. Senator George Mitchell, commissioner Bud Selig and their steroids investigation. This weekend, Bonds has a chance to tie or surpass Babe Ruth’s mark of 714 career home runs.

Babe Ruth, of course, is one of the most storied and beloved ballplayers to ever live. In the wake of the 1919 Black Sox scandal, it was Ruth and all of his home runs that not only saved the game of baseball, but also became the stuff of legend.

Bonds, not to rehash all of the building controversy, has always been the antithesis of Ruth. According to published reports as well as first-hand accounts from folks who have dealt with Bonds throughout the years, he has been rude, curt, mean and selfish. And that’s to the people who are close to him.

Ruth, according to legend, was always the life of the party. Where Bonds is surly, Ruth was gregarious.

Regardless, Bonds and Ruth could share the spotlight this weekend in Philadelphia.

The Giants have three more games until they arrive in Philadelphia, with only one at home against before the team hits the road, so obviously Bonds will not pass the Babe at the relatively friendly confines of San Francisco’s ballpark (whatever company it’s named for now). Still, after two games in Milwaukee and then the three in Philly, the Giants return home for a week. Therefore, it would not be too surprising if Bonds has some sort of injury when his team comes to Philadelphia even though Sunday’s game is scheduled to be telecast nationally on ESPN.

Bonds, of course, is taping a reality show for ESPN.

Anyway, Major League Baseball has already issued a statement that it will not formally acknowledge Bonds’ 715^th home run, which is the correct move since Henry Aaron, not Babe Ruth, holds the record for the most home runs. However, that doesn’t mean the fans in the stands at the Bank won’t acknowledge the deed if it occurs here.

Certainly, the national media will have a field day figuring out how the fans in Philly will react if Bonds passes Ruth, so to take the tired, old Philly fan clichés out of the mix for a change, here’s my suggestion for how the fans should react to Bonds:

Don’t react at all. Don’t boo, don’t cheer, don’t guffaw. Just stand there and be quiet. Turn your back if you feel that’s necessary, but truly respond with no emotion whatsoever.

How cool would it be to see Bonds circle the bases after a milestone homer in total silence?

It’s also worth noting that Babe Ruth's last game was played at the Baker Bowl, the Phillies old stadium that was located in North Philadelphia at Broad and Lehigh Ave. on May 30, 1935. As a player for the Boston Braves, the 40-year-old Ruth struck out in the first inning and then hurt his knee playing first base in the bottom half of the inning.

He walked off the field and never played again.