SAN FRANCISCO — In what was supposed to be a wide-open World Series, the kind that makes purists breathe rapidly, there was at least one working guarantee.
If the San Francisco Giants were going to finish off a miracle October, it’d have to be around Cliff Lee, not through him. Not with the tidal wave of momentum Lee (Benton, Arkansas Razorbacks) was riding this month, which included the million or so cut fastballs that he’d whispered over the corners.
Ask the New York Yankees what it was like facing Lee at his best. Ask them how overmatched the American League’s most dominant offense was when Lee threw an eight-inning shutout in Game 3 of the American League Championship Series, giving up just two hits and striking out 13.
That’s why the Giants were supposed to go down quietly in the World Series, or at least to Lee. Granted, they’d just taken down Roy Halladay and the Philadelphia Phillies to win the National League pennant, but goodness, Lee is Lee, who until Wednesday night was emerging as one of the greatest postseason pitchers of this generation.
So how does it figure that Lee went down in flames in Game 1, crushed in the Giants’ 11-7 avalanche?
It wasn’t that he was just ineffective. It was as if it were someone else filling up the upper quadrant of the strike, missing time and again at the letters. In fact, by the time Manager Ron Washington finally came to get Lee in the blowout fifth inning, it was like a scene out of a Rangers fan’s horror flick.
“It was one of those nights when I was trying to find it the whole time,” Lee said. “I missed up [in the strike zone], I missed over the plate, and professional hitters take advantage of those pitches.
“I made a ton of mistakes and they made me pay. When you think of the Giants, you think of their starting pitching and their bullpen, but they still have a lot of good hitters in that lineup. They proved that.”
So there was Lee, handing the ball to Washington, hesitating for a moment in what had to be an unfamiliar if not embarrassing transaction. He ran off the mound, making a straight line for the dugout, not allowing himself a glance at the thousands of orange pompoms waving in his face.
That’s what Giants fans have been doing throughout the postseason, celebrating like crazy on the roll through the Atlanta Braves and the Philadelphia Phillies.
Could Texas be next? Nothing is impossible now, not in this alternate universe where Lee suddenly can’t throw those perfect strikes. In fact, without Lee’s victories as a given, there is nothing to distinguish the Giants and Rangers in this best-of-7 series.
You remember: The Bombers scored five runs in the eighth inning, turning what might have been a 5-1 loss into a stirring 6-5 victory. That should have been enough to smooth the Yankees’ path to the World Series, right?
Not exactly. They didn’t count on Colby Lewis hurling one of his two victories against the defending world champs. Lewis took a lead into the sixth inning in Game 2, allowing just two runs, as the Rangers healed those Game 1 scars in less than 24 hours.
In the ALCS, the Rangers knew they had Lee in reserve in Game 3. There was weight bearing down on Lewis, no doubt, but Texas’ best weapon still was waiting for the Yankees.
This time, Texas already has shown its hand. Lee was supposed to set the tone for the Fall Classic, showing the Giants what it means to be dominated by an American League offense, not to mention the dizzying array of cutters, curveballs and well-placed, four-seam fastballs that made the Yankees look helpless.
All Lee had to do was repeat his delivery. That’s his blessing, cloning that windup, release and follow-through 100 times a game with practically no variation. Ask any pitcher about the degree of difficulty in Lee’s consistency and you’ll get one of those raised eyebrows that say: Are you kidding?
Difficult isn’t even the word to describe Lee’s discipline. More like impossible, at least for humans. But if Game 1 taught us anything, it’s that not every one of his strikes will find a corner and nestle somewhere between the knees and the lower thigh.
In fact, this time Lee was outpitched by Tim Lincecum, who wasn’t great but at least hung on until the sixth. That was long after Lee had been knocked out, the victim of too many fastballs that reeked of imperfection in the fifth.
Like the one that Freddy Sanchez rapped into the gap in left-center, giving the Giants a 3-2 lead. Or the one that Cody Ross lined to center, a single that made it 4-2. Or the dead-spin cutter that Aubrey Huff hit back up the middle, another RBI single that extended San Francisco’s lead to an unthinkable 5-2.
That was the last pitch Lee would throw for the night, and maybe Yankees fans were wondering what it would all mean this winter. That’s when Lee, the free agent, would finally be separated from the Rangers, at least in the physical sense. Whether the outcome of the World Series will have any bearing on Lee’s ultimate choice of employers in 2011 remains to be seen.
But until then, October has a new normal.
Don’t count on anything. In this universe, not even Lee is a sure thing.
Sports, Pages 22 on 10/29/2010