PHILADELPHIA — Cliff Lee had the antidote to the Phillies’ bullpen problems: Never let them take their jackets off.
Lee pitched a complete game in a 5-1 victory over the Rockies yesterday to give the Phillies a 1-0 lead in the NLDS. The lefty did not give up the run until the ninth inning, striking out five and walking none in the 113-pitch effort.
The start was what the Phillies had in mind in July when they acquired him from the Indians just before the trade deadline. The defending world champs knew they had the offense to repeat, but they needed one more arm. After making a run at Roy Halladay, they snatched up Lee for a lesser package.
“What he did today was absolutely amazing,” Phillies center fielder Shane Victorino said. “That’s what they brought him here for. That’s what they counted on. He went out and did his job. He was the Cliff Lee that won Cy Young.”
Lee sat down 16 straight Rockies at one point and had 1-2-3 innings in six of the nine. The start was Lee’s first in the postseason. He became the first pitcher since the Mets’ Bobby Jones in 2000 against the Giants to pitch a complete game in his first postseason start.
After the game, Lee clutched the game ball before surrendering it to a Phillies staffer to get it authenticated. The start was another chapter in the 31-year-old’s career. Traded as a minor leaguer from Montreal by Omar Minaya in 2002, Lee became a star in Cleveland before a dismal 2007 season.
The Indians sent him to the minor leagues that year and left him off their postseason roster. Lee rebounded last year to win 22 games and the AL Cy Young.
As Lee sat one out away from a complete game shutout yesterday, he stepped off the mound to soak it all in. He wound up giving up a run-scoring hit moments later to Troy Tulowitzki, but the moment was worth it.
“I wanted to give myself a chance to really absorb it all and take it all in,” Lee, who also had a hit and a stolen base, said. “Maybe it cost me a run, but we still won, so that’s the bottom line.”
Colorado managed three hits in the first two innings, then didn’t touch Lee again until the seventh. The Phillies’ defense made several big plays behind Lee despite a whipping wind that made fly balls an adventure.
“Between the wind and the sun in right field it was probably the toughest day defensively in Philly that I’ve seen,” Phillies right fielder Jayson Werth said.
Colorado’s Ubaldo Jimenez matched Lee through four innings, but the Phillies got to him in a two-run fifth and three-run sixth. Raul Ibanez knocked in two of Philly’s five runs and everyone in the lineup had at least one hit.
The Rockies now need to salvage a game or return to Denver facing a 0-2 hole.
“They created opportunities for themselves to score runs,” Rockies manager Jim Tracy said. “We really didn’t create any with the exception of what took place in the ninth inning. They just beat us today.”