Lee dominates Yankees again as Rangers win
The Yankees’ biggest fear coming into the American League Championship Series was facing Cliff Lee, and on Monday night Lee showed everyone why in an 8-0 win.
The left-hander put in a masterful performance dominating the Yankees once again, striking out 13 batters and allowing just two hits in eight innings to help the Texas Rangers take a 2-1 series lead.
Lee picked up from where he left off against the Yankees in the World Series last year when he beat New York twice, including a complete game six-hitter in which he struck out 10 batters.
Again the Yankees failed to deal with Lee’s pin-point accuracy and devastating off-speed stuff.
“The cutter was a really good pitch for me today, working ahead in the count and staying out of the heart of the plate, that’s the name of the game as far as pitching goes, I was able to do that tonight,” Lee told TBS’ Craig Sager after the game.
Broken bat bloop by Jorge Posada, a single by Brett Gardner and two fly balls were the only balls to get out of the infield. Josh Hamilton’s two-run homerun in the first inning put the Rangers up 2-0 helping Lee settle down.
“Anytime you can get that deep in a game and not give up any runs in the post-season that’s huge. Josh hitting that homer in the first made things a lot easier, that's for sure,” Lee said.
The 32-year-old improved to 7-0 with a 1.26 ERA in eight play-off starts and became the first player ever to have three 10-plus strikeout games in the same post-season.
“He's spoiling us, what can you say, it's one performance after another. He's phenomenal,” Rangers president Nolan Ryan said after the game.
Yankees pitcher Andy Pettitte pitched seven strong innings giving up just two runs on the homerun to Hamilton in the first inning. From then on it was plain sailing as he proceeded to strikeout five batters and allowing just four more hits. But when facing someone as dominant as Lee it just wasn’t enough.
"We're down 2-1, we're not down 3-0. It's frustrating we've lost two games in a row, but we've lost two games in a row a lot of times before and come back,” Yankees manager Joe Girardi said.
Texas added six runs in the ninth inning as they batted around. A bases loaded single from Mitch Moreland and RBI’s from Nelson Cruz and Bengie Molina made sure there was no return for New York.
Lee has now struck out 67 batters this post-season walking just seven batters in 64 1-3 innings, establishing himself as the premium pitcher in the major leagues.
Game four is on Tuesday night when the struggling AJ Burnett looks to help the Yankees bounce back against Texas’ Tommy Hunter.
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