Game Won

Baseball is like waiting for a bus.  But when it gets here… it explodes.

Tonight, Cliff Lee set the bus on fire at the last stop, and let it roll right through the gates of Yankee Stadium.

I’m not going to gush.  I feel like that’s going to be covered quite well by all the news anchors, Phillies advocates who make it on TV, television networks, and the rest of us Phils fans who watched the game with a little class.

The man took “pitching” and turned it into a sure thing.

He threw a baseball, at ridiculous angles and speeds (99 MPH in the bottom of the 9th, by the way), in the midst of a driving rain storm, all the while blowing into his hand to keep it alive, against the team with the best regular season in baseball by a lot.

On a clear day, in front of a home crowd, with his best stuff working, a starting pitcher can make one mistake that costs him everything.

Cliff Lee faced the polar opposite of ideal conditions.  And he still had a 9 IP, 10 K, 0 ER, game.  In the World Series.  In Yankee Stadium.  (PS–He also has the lowest ERA in the history of the MLB postseason).

Two bad-ass defensive plays aside, Lee then claimed after the game that he has never been nervous playing professional baseball in his entire career.  Can you really doubt him after tonight?

“Game time is the time go out there and have fun and let your skills take over,” Lee explained.

Okay, yeah, but who has got those skills? If I had let my “baseball skills” take over during a little league game, I would have wound up dead, face down in a corn field.

Cliff Lee was the dominant species tonight.  He was the alpha male.  He was the hunt, the kill, and the feast.

You can’t ignore Chase, obviously, firing off a few shots off his own, and making that .211 postseason BA seem all the sillier.  The offense was where it’s been this whole time, which is more than you could ever hope for–Lee’s performance was the icing on the skillfully played cake.

But hold onto your butts, people; we’re still in New York, and we don’t have a rotation full of Cliff Lee’s.

… what does “gush” mean again?

POST GAME BITCHING

• Oh, good.  Now that we’ve gone from TBS to FOX, we get to see ads for a Wanda Sykes late night talk show, as opposed to George Lopez.  “Oh honey, that’s not a bear sneaking into our tent.  It’s a wolverine with an extremely shrill voice.”
• In game commentary by partygoers:  “Did Cliff Lee test positive for steroids?” “No, but he’s got to be off the charts for meth.”
• Also:  “Okay, if that’s baseball, what’s basketball?”  “Basketball is a series of bomb threats, followed by a small explosion at the very end.”
• “There were a lot of empty seats.  It was a lot quieter by the end.”  Geeze, New York.  I expect that from L.A., but you guys?  Come on.