I know this gets brought up a lot….but I can’t bring myself to look at the user comments at the bottom….I can only imagine….

Cliff was absolutely masterful. If the Phillies win in it, it’ll be because of Cliff Lee. Start calling him M-V-Lee!

I may have to get a Cliff Lee Phillies jersey. Seriously.

Dazzling performance by Clifton last night. I expected to be upset all game, but watching him blow Jeet away in the first let me know I was in for a really fun evening.

i was bursting with pride watching 34 last night

Unlike Sabathia, I still think a majority of people probably doubted Lee’s ability for continued success. That makes it all the more sweet to see him put on a show (the pitching, the pop-up catch, and the behind-the-back play) against that team in their house on the World Series stage.

I’m blown away by his performance against the righties — which includes three switch-hitters.

The lefties — Damon, Matsui, Cano — went 2-for-10 with one strikeout — which actually is not bad.

The righties — Jeter, Teixeria, A-Rod, Posada, Swisher, Cabrera — went 4-for-22 with just one double and no walks. That’s an OPS of .409, and there’s at least two Hall of Famers in that group.

Last night’s Sabathia-Lee matchup, a 6-1 win for the Phillies, could be viewed as an indictment of baseball insofar as its design for payroll balance. If revenue sharing was supposed to enable small- and middle-market clubs to keep their best players, it still isn’t working. Then again, to be fair, it wasn’t the Yankees who caused the starting pitching market to skyrocket to absurd levels. It was the San Francisco Giants with their seven-year, $126 million contract for Barry Zito. Before that, it was the Colorado Rockies with their seven-year, $121 million deal for Mike Hampton. And before that, the Dodgers with their seven-year, $120 million pact with Kevin Brown.

When the Yankees signed Sabathia last winter for $161 million over seven years, they were merely following the market that the Mets had set with six years, $137.5 million for Johan Santana. It’s the same stratospheric market Lee figures to enter when he becomes eligible for free agency after next season – a market only a few clubs can seemingly enter now, and certainly not the Indians.

Link

There’s a Shapiro quote in there too. But, I just had to laugh at this Yankee writer justifying last night’s game. Amazing.

I want to take this opportunity to point out something that annoys me with playoff recaps and highlights, especially in the World Series. “Chase Utley is only the 2nd left-handed hitter to hit 2 home runs off of a lefty in World Series history.” Like anyone cares about that. When Utley hit that second home run, did anyone say, “WOW! The significance of that shot will weigh on whether or not many other lefties have ever done that off a lefty! I need to know!”

And it gets more detailed then. Someone, somewhere, is letting us know that Sabathia is only the 14th pitcher in WS Game 1 history to give up 2 runs or less in 7 innings during a night game from the American League and lose. Now I made that up, but even if CC was the first, I don’t care.