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Good Guys Win! Phillies 3, Marlins 0

Cliff Lee pitched a gem, and Delmon Young and Domonic Brown were the hitting stars. Don't look now, but the Phillies are 7-3 in their last 10 games.

Cliff Lee did not wear this hat on the mound tonight.
Cliff Lee did not wear this hat on the mound tonight.
Marc Serota

Through the first 46 games of the season, including 11 games against the woeful Mets and Marlins, the Phillies had just one complete game shutout. On a team with Cole Hamels, Roy Halladay, and Cliff Lee, naturally that complete game shutout was recorded by none other than Kyle Kendrick.

Cliff Lee rectified that situation today, with a three-hit masterpiece against the Marlins. For all but the second inning, Lee made it look easy. Even that inning wasn't too bad. After an infield single, a walk, and a hit batter (no balls leaving the infield), Lee got out of the jam with a double play and pop-up. After that, smooth sailing.

For the second night in a row, the offense wasn't offensive. Delmon Young hit his third home run of the season to start the scoring off in the fourth. In the sixth, he had an infield single and then came around to score on Domonic Brown's triple. Freddy Galvis then knocked in Brown with a single.

And that was it other than watching Lee mow down the Marlins. Baseball's inane accounting practices credit Lee with five wins on the season now. That's one less than he was credited with all of last year. In fact, the accounting system did not give Lee a fifth win last year until September 12. Of course, going into today's game (stats have not been updated), Lee's xFIP this year (3.58) is half a run higher than last year (3.06). That's conventional baseball statistics for you!

The only other thing to note really is that Delmon Young can throw. We covered his Glennbo-esque throw in San Francisco several games ago. Tonight, Young did it again. He nailed Chris Coghlan trying to tag up from first on a long fly ball to right by Nick Green. Young caught the ball deep in right field and made the throw flat footed. It was a laser that hit Rollins on one hop, who easily tagged Coghlan out at least three feet short of the second-base bag. There are lots of reasons to hate Delmon Young's presence on this team, despite his two home runs over the past two days, but we are quickly learning that his arm is not one of them.

Fangraph of keeping it up for the Nationals series:


Source: FanGraphs