14 Phun Phacts of Cliff Lee's 2011 Season

Ranger and Yankee fans have to be gnashing their teeth at the way that Cliff Lee is pitching for the Philadelphia Phillies. Lee pitched his sixth shutout of the season in shutting down the Atlanta Braves on Labor Day. Ironically, in this game, he never labored at all. Contrast his outing to the normal Josh Beckett outing and Cliff Lee doesn't have to stand on the mound and hold the ball for a minute between pitches. The game was over in two hours and twenty-four minutes. In honor of Lee's game and for his season, here are some phun phacts about Lee's season. Apologies in advance to Phillies' fans for stealing their "PH."

1. In Cliff Lee's sixteen wins, he's given up fourteen runs with a WHIP of 0.790.
2. Cliff Lee went 5-0 in June with an ERA of 0.21 and then went 5-0 in August with an ERA of 0.45. He made ten starts in those two months and won them all while giving up only three total runs.
3. Lee's six shutouts this season is the most since Randy Johnson had six shutouts in 1998. 
4. Lee's six shutouts this season is more than the career totals of Josh Beckett, Justin Verlander (two no-hitters) and Tim Lincecum. 
5. The third position in the batting order is usually a team's best hitter. But this year, Cliff Lee has held that batting order position to an OPS of .616 and has a strikeout to walk ratio of 13.00.
6. Cliff Lee has faced 783 batters this season and has reached a 3-0 count on only 22 of them (2.8 percent). Twelve of those batters walked but only one of them scored and none of them got a hit.
7. All non-pitchers that have had plate appearances against Cliff Lee have a combined OPS of .640. In other words, the entire non-pitchers he has faced have been Adam Dunn.
8. Cliff Lee's average fastball speed of 91.6 MPH is the highest average of his career.
9. His swinging strike percentage is his highest since 2003.
10. Lee doesn't have one pitch type in negative values. In other words, every pitch he throws is effective.
11. Lee has reached 200 strikeouts this year for the first time in his career.
12. Cliff Lee hasn't needed to intentionally walk anybody this season.
13. Lee hasn't thrown a single wild pitch all season.
14. And here is the personal favorite: Cliff Lee has a positive WAR this season as a batter and his .339 slugging percentage as a batter is higher than the slugging percentage of all the batters he's faced this season: .337.