Lee claims Cy Young Award
Just over 15 months ago, Cliff Lee’s baseball career was at a serious crossroads. An 18-game winner for the Cleveland Indians in 2005, the left-hander was enduring an injury-plagued 2007 campaign and a pennant race didn’t allow for any patience with him.
Lee was sent to Buffalo, optioned to the Bisons in a desperate attempt to revive his arsenal. The trip back here didn’t pay immediate dividends but it sure inspired him over the winter.
Lee’s long journey reached a climax Thursday as he was named a landslide winner of the American League’s Cy Young Award. It was a fitting conclusion to a season that saw Lee go 22-3 with an 2.54 ERA, 170 strikeouts and just 34 walks.
“All I could do was push forward,” Lee said in a conference call from his home in Benton, Ark. “I used ’07 as motivation in the offseason to go and do everything I could so I didn’t allow that to happen again. Going through what I did last year did help in making me a mentally tougher baseball player. It wasn’t any fun but looking back on it, it makes for a better story.”
Lee went to spring training this year battling Aaron Laffey and Jeremy Sowers for the No. 5 spot in the Tribe’s rotation and won that job. He quickly established himself as the team’s ace by winning his first six starts and posting an 0.81 ERA in that stretch. He was 12-2, 2.31 when he started for the AL in the All-Star Game at Yankee Stadium.
“This was the most incredible season I’ve ever seen from a pitcher at this level,” Indians manager Eric Wedge said in a separate call from Cleveland. “It was consistent from beginning to end.”
“I knew pretty early it was going to be a special year,” Lee said. “But even with that I made sure to keep my mind in the moment because that’s why I was so successful those first few starts.”
Lee’s selection marked the second straight year a Cleveland pitcher captured the award as CC Sabathia won it in 2007. Lee was named first on 24 of 28 ballots by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America and second on the other four.
Lee finished with 132 points in the voting. Runner-up Roy Halladay of Toronto had 71, including the other four first-place votes. Los Angeles closer Francisco Rodriguez, who set a major-league record with 62 saves, finished third with 32.
Lee and Bartolo Colon (Anaheim, 2005) are the only modern- era Bisons to win a Cy Young but Colon’s came seven years after his last game in Buffalo. No Bison had gone from Buffalo one year to a major award in the big leagues the next.
It was a huge bounce-back season for the 30-year-old Lee. He was just 5-8 with a 6.29 ERA for the Tribe in ’07 as a spring training abdominal injury and ineffectiveness doomed his campaign.
With his season in complete disarray, Lee was optioned to the Bisons in late July and went 1-3 with a 3.51 ERA in eight starts for the Herd. When Lee returned to Cleveland, he was not used in any meaningful situations and was left off the Tribe’s postseason roster.
He strengthened his offseason workout program and met with pitching coach Carl Willis at Willis’ North Carolina home. “It was the second time I’ve had an ab strain and I would be a fool not to do the something extra I need to do,” Lee said. “. . . I upped the ab work that I had been doing. It’s not that I slacked. I’ve always felt I’m a hard worker. Having a tough season makes you push even harder.”
Lee also said the winter meeting with Willis set a huge tone.
“They wanted to make sure as an organization they did everything they could and put everything out on the table,” Lee said. “They wanted to do everything to make me the pitcher I could be and I was all for that.”
Lee was acquired by Cleveland from Montreal in the 2002 trade for Colon. He also pitched for Buffalo in 2002 (3-2, 3.77) and 2003 (6-1, 3.27).
Lee receives a $250,000 bonus for winning the Cy Young.
