Diagnosing the Lee and Lincecum struggles

Monday, April 13, 2009 | Feedback | Print Entry

It was a tough first week for the defending Cy Young Award winners. Cliff Lee didn't suffer his second loss last year until July, and while it would've been silly to expect him to repeat his 2008 performance in 2009, he's already allowed almost as many hits (17) in his first two starts as he did in the entire month of April last year. Not good.

Lee threw so poorly in 2007 that he was sent to the minors, and last year he was the best pitcher in his league. Right now, it's hard to tell which year was the aberration. Cleveland certainly has questions at the back end of the rotation, especially now that Scott Lewis has landed on the disabled list and Carl Pavano's ERA is a robust 81.00, but it's hard to see how the Indians will contend unless they get decent production out of Lee and Fausto Carmona.  
 

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  • Buster Olney Buster Olney

    Buster Olney is a senior writer at ESPN The Magazine. He began covering baseball in 1989, as the Nashville Banner's beat reporter assigned to the Triple-A Nashville Sounds. Later, he covered the San Diego Padres (1993-94), the Baltimore Orioles ('95-96), the New York Mets ('97) and the Yankees ('98-2001). Olney joined ESPN The Magazine in 2003, after six years at The New York Times, and he's the author of the Times' best-seller "The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty," a book about the Paul O'Neill-Tino Martinez Yankees dynasty of 1996-01.

    He grew up in central Vermont collecting baseball cards and listening to Red Sox, Expos, Phillies and Pirates radio broadcasts, and was a rabid fan of the Los Angeles Dodgers. He graduated from Vanderbilt University the same year as hoops legend Will Perdue, and ranks among the all-time leading scorers in pickup basketball at Memorial Gym. He claims to have witnessed the Commodores' winning football season in 1982 (although anthropologists have not yet confirmed this).

    Olney also contributes to ESPN.com, ESPN Radio, ESPNEWS, "SportsCenter" and "Baseball Tonight."

    Follow Buster on Twitter: @Buster_ESPN

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