Cleveland Indians Starting Pitcher Cliff Lee Leads American League Cy Young Award Race

Cleveland Indians' starter Cliff Lee currently leads all of baseball with his 14 victories and it would seem that the American League Cy Young Award looms for the soon-to-be thirty year old lefty. Lee has lost just twice and has an earned run average of 2.29, best among the junior circuit's starting hurlers. Nobody close to Cliff Lee in victories can also match his winning percentage and ERA, making him an odds-on favorite at this point to grab his first Cy Young. But there does seem to be one man who can wrest the honor from him should he falter in the season's last couple of months- a reliever from the West Coast having a potential record-breaking year.

Lee's 14 wins are one more than the Yankees' Mike Mussina and the Angels' Joe Saunders; he has two more triumphs than Roy Halladay of the Blue Jays, Andy Pettitte of New York, and Vincente Padilla of the Rangers, all at a dozen as of this writing. Only Halladay of that group has an ERA under three runs per game' however, it is 2.82, well above Cliff's number. In 20 starts, Lee has walked just 20 batters to go with 120 strikeouts, an outstanding ratio of exactly 6-1. Halladay's 7 complete games lead all of baseball, but Lee has a pair himself, including one shutout. Halladay has 7 losses, making it hard for him to state his case against a pitcher with just 2 who owns better stats in most important pitching categories.

Boston's Daisuke Matsuzaka is 11-1 with a 2.63 earned run average, but he has missed time with injuries, throwing just 95 inning compared to Lee's 141. His 60 walks have caused most of his problems when he does have any. Playing with a contender such as Boston will hurt Matsuzaka's Cy Young chances when one considers that Lee has 14 of the Tribe's 45 wins, and 8 more than the next highest man on the staff, the departed C. C. Sabathia.

Cliff Lee would have to have the wheels come flying off big time to let any other starter into the Cy Young mix. There is a fly in his ointment though in the form of the Angels' Frankie Rodriguez, who has 43 saves and is inching ever closer each week to Bobby Thigpen's major league mark of 57 in one year, set in 1990 while with the White Sox. Rodriguez has a strikeout an inning to go with his 2.33 ERA, having blown a total of 3 saves out of 46 chances. Jonathan Papelbon of the Red Sox has even better strikeout and walk totals than Rodriguez, but trails him by 13 in the saves department. Mariano Rivera may be having his best season ever for the Bronx Bombers, which is saying quite a bit, but his 1.17 ERA, as impressive as it is, comes with "only" 26 saves due to the Yankee struggles of the first half of 2008.

Cy Young voters almost always favor a superior starter over a superior reliever, going for the latter only when no one stands out amongst the pitchers that begin the games. Lee has shown no signs of slowing down, posting a 2.13 ERA for July. He has some wiggle room as far as his losses go, and if he reaches 20 wins he would be a lock for his first Cy Young Award.