Cliff Lee shines as Philadelphia Phillies beat Washington Nationals 4-0 – MLB Update
Cliff Lee remained virtually unhittable on Thursday, April 14 as Philadelphia Phillies outplayed Washington Nationals 4-0 at Nationals Park, Washington.
It was the pitchers of both teams who were in driving seat in the start of the game. Jordan Zimmermann, the starting pitcher for Washington Nationals, was in no way behind Cliff Lee until the sixth inning when Carlos Ruiz and Placido Polanco turned to account
Washington pitcher’s fastball and made a 2-0 lead for their team. Such a lead further elevated Lee who unleashed the wrath of unplayable fastballs on seemingly struggling Washington batters.
Lee could not write a better script than finishing the game with getting Jayson Werth grounded out. "Obviously I'd prefer to have good starts every time," Lee said. "It's not a good feeling if you don't do well. It happens. There's no way around it. If you
play this game long enough, you're going to have bad games no matter who you are.”
It was Shane Victorino that kicked off the game for Philadelphia, facing Zimmermann. He had commanding influence in the first inning where he did not allow any batter to go for any hit. Lee then came to pitch for Philadelphia to be faced by Ian Desmond.
There and then Lee had his promising start, leaving absolutely no space for the Washington Nationals to make a room for themselves. In the second inning, Ryan Howard, Ben Francisco or Raul Ibanez were far from perfect to capitalise on a potential mistake of
Zimmermann. Nationals’ Ada LaRoche, Wilson Ramos and Michael Morse were not able to open their account either.
It was in the sixth inning that Carlos Ruiz took on Zimmermann, as he homered to left to score the first run of Philadelphia. Placido Polanco followed, as he reached on an infield single to third, Victornio scored and on the throwing error of Hairston, Polanco
made it to second. The 2-0 lead put Washington in a troubling position largely because Lee’s fastball was getting faster, rendering the Nationals’ players completely incapable of hitting him with confidence.
The eighth completely changed the game as Polanco scored another run followed by Jimmy Rollins. Polanco grounded into field choice to second as Ruiz scored, Lee out at second, Wilson Valdez to third. Rollins singled to right, where Valdez scored, Polanco
to second, sealing the fate of the game. Lee, like his previous 8 innings, was fast in the 9th, not allowing any batters of the Nationals to score, making it another shut-out inning, enabling the Phillies to win by 4-0.
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