Phillies left-hander, Cliff Lee threw in game action for the first time since being placed on the disabled list on May 19th with a left elbow strain. Although his start was shortened by rain, Lee worked quickly and used primarily his fastball over two scoreless innings against the Brevard County Manatees, allowing a hit while striking out two.
After the game, Cliff said due to the impdending weather, he tried to speed things up. (via CSNPhilly.com)
"Obviously, I would have liked to have thrown four innings and get all my work in, but the weather didn't allow it, so I've got to go back to Clearwater."
"I felt fine," Lee told reporters after the game. "I threw two cutters and everything else was a fastball. You could see the weather coming, so I was trying to hurry."
Lee threw 24 total pitches, 17 for strikes and the one hit he allowed was a bloop single that was erased on a double-play ball to the next hitter. This rehab start wasn't necessarily one where Lee was looking for results, but rather to get back into the groove of facing live hitters. (via Phillies.com)
"Honestly, I wasn't too worried about the results, more about just getting my pitches in and facing live hitters," Lee said of the first inning. "It's a good thing to get in those kind of situations just to experience it, but I would have preferred to have three up and three down for four innings and go home, but that's not what happened."
The Phillies have tentatively set Lee's next start for Wednesday, again with Clearwater. Before hitting the disabled list in May, Lee was 4-4 with a 3.18 ERA. While his return to the rotation would be great to see sooner than later, unfortunately it looks like it will be to increase his trade value rather than help the team win. That seems to be in the hands of the hitters at this point.
Before the game was called, Phillies prospect JP Crawford hit a two-run homer to give the Threshers a 2-0 lead. They will resume yesterday's game as part of a double-header today beginning at 5:05pm.
Brandon Apter, Publishing Editor for Philliedelphia.com
