Tuesday, August 27, 2013

2013 Bowman Platinum #45 Cliff Lee

Phillies 2, Mets 1 
Game 131 - Monday Night, August 26th in Flushing 
Record – 60-71, 3rd Place, 18 1/2 games behind the Braves 

One Sentence Summary:  The Phillies continued their recent winning ways behind the arm of Cliff Lee and the bat of Cody Asche, defeating the Mets, 2-1.

What It Means:  The suddenly respectable Phillies have won seven of their last nine games. The postseason is out of the question, but to finish the season with a winning record, they'll need to go 22-9 the rest of the way.  That's a tall order, but I feel better now about their chances than I did during their recent 4-19 slide.

What Went Right:  In short, Lee pitched like an ace.  In his eight innings of work, Lee scattered five hits and struck out seven while allowing only the lone Mets run.  After allowing the run in the second, he face the minimum number of batters until the eighth inning.  Asche provided the only offensive support Lee needed with a two-run triple in the fourth.

Featured Card:   Continuing with my questionable annual tradition of picking up team sets from high-end, premium set offerings, this is Lee's card from the super shiny Bowman Platinum set.

Initially thinking this was a new brand, or perhaps a brand that had only been around since last year, I was stunned to discover that Topps has released this set every year since 2010 . . . and I have all the Phillies base cards from those sets.  I need to start paying closer attention to these things.  (Upon further review, I've actually featured a few Bowman Platinum cards from the past few years on this here blog.)

2 comments:

Section 36 said...

So, you have all the Phillies cards from sets you didn't know existed? There a word for that, you know.

Jim said...

Gettin' old.