Baez Pitched Better Than Lee Today

Pigs flew, hell froze over, Abreu sacrificed his body and Curt Schilling shut his fat mouth.  Today, something that no one could have every predicted happened; Danys Baez had a better line then Cliff Lee.  

Relief pitchers are completely unpredictable.  One year they can be completely useless (See Danys Baez last season) and the next season they can become serviceable.  Hell, Steve Bedrosian won a Cy Young award in 1987 and was average for the entirety of his career.

I believe what I am doing here is predicting that Danys Baez will win this years’ Cy Young award.

Lee started today against the Baltimore Orioles and innings eater Jeremy Guthrie.  Both starters gave up early runs and both starters were taken deep.  Lee went three innings, gave up five hits and three earned runs.

With Philly fans everywhere in full panic mode due to a certain second basemen’s cranky knee, there seems to be an unrealistic expectation as to the performance of every other member of the team.  Lee will be fine everyone.  I know that it is customary to freak out over incoquential happenings when you are nervous, but the pitchers will be fine.  This also pertains to the notion of acquiring an additional injury prone, aging, expensive infielder.  Forget Young, there is always Luis Castillo.

Using this same logic, maybe it means nothing that Danys Baez has been unBaez-like in the grapefruit league.  I am willing to use a completely different framework for judging the performances of Lee and Baez.  Baez went two innings today, didn’t allow a hit, struck out one and walked two.  It is beginning to look like it will be Baez and not the bevy of young arms who seemed poised to steal a roster spot that will make the team. I think we will all take it as long as he doesn’t decide that last year’s performance was acceptable.  2.5 million dollars is a lot of money to pay for someone to be friends with Jose Contreras. (Editors note:  Baltimore paid Baez 7.1 million dollars in 2009.  Just think about that for a minute)

The Phils bats woke up today.  Mayberry, Howard and Gload all homered for the Phils.  They used the long ball today to eek out a 13-6 victory.

Lidge continues to get smacked around a little bit this spring.  During his last outing, there was some conversation about the Phils closer attempting to implement a cut fastball into his repertoire.  He did the same thing after giving up that monster home run to Pujols.  I am not a pitching coach here, but I think he may want to stick with the four seemer and slider.

Next up for the Phils, split squad action with the Rays and Pirates both at 1:05.