Major League Baseball

What a rush!

Published Oct. 13, 2010 10:06 p.m. ET

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ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - For the second time in a week, Cliff Lee took the mound to face the pitcher who started the All-Star Game for the American League and the team with the league's best record.

For the first time ever, the Texas Rangers won a playoff series as a result.

Lee set an American League Division Series record by striking out 21 Tampa Bay batters (10 in Game 1, 11 more Tuesday night), and he held the Rays to one run for the second time as Texas pulled off a 5-1 win to capture the best-of-5 series at Tropicana Field.

The road teams won all five games in the series, and Lee, the man who was brought to Texas expressly for this postseason purpose, won two of them.

A franchise born in Washington in 1961 and transplanted to Arlington in 1972 nearly went half a century without winning a postseason series. Lee rescued the Rangers from that ignobility.

The Rangers have had four players - Jeff Burroughs, Juan Gonzalez, Pudge Rodriguez, Alex Rodriguez - win league MVP awards. It's very possible that Josh Hamilton will add his name to the list for the 2010 season.

Baseball's postseason is all - or mostly - about pitching, however.

The Rangers never have had a Cy Young Award winner, and Lee didn't pitch long enough or frankly well enough this season to get consideration.

But he has proved to be a postseason master. He was the only Phillie to beat the Yankees in the last World Series, and he did it twice. Lee's brilliance was in evidence Tuesday in the biggest game in Rangers history.

Lee pitched all nine innings and walked none as he outdueled 19-game winner David Price once again.

Before Lee came along, three pitchers in major league history had postseason starts in which they went at least seven innings while striking out 10 and walking none.

Lee has done it four times the last two years, including both starts for Texas in this series.

In this team's history, Fergie Jenkins had 20-win seasons and Nolan Ryan threw no-hitters, but they never made a postseason appearance for Texas.

A generation or so ago, the Yankees' Reggie Jackson earned the Mr. October nickname for the timely home runs he delivered.

Lee is the closest thing to Mr. October among starting pitchers in the game today. He's not unhittable, but he almost never allows teams to string hits together and he refuses to hurt his own cause with walks.

The only home run Lee has allowed in 56 postseason innings was the one struck by Ben Zobrist here in Game 1.

Jason Bartlett, who had three of the Rays' six hits Tuesday, had the only extra-base hit with a double in the fifth inning. Lee struck out Zobrist in what might have been Tampa Bay's last real threat to score.

If there is a downside to the Rangers' breakthrough win, well, there are two to consider, actually. One is that Lee became a Ranger in July because he's a free agent, and while he will face the Yankees in the next week, he might easily wear Yankee pinstripes in 2011. In fact the more damage he inflicts upon New York in the Rangers' first League Championship Series, one might assume it increases the bid the Yankees will make.

That's a concern for later.

In the meantime, unless the Rangers depart from their plan to keep him on four days' rest, he won't pitch against New York until Game 3 in Yankee Stadium.

That's not the worst thing in the world for Texas.

After winning a grueling series that almost got away from them over the weekend, the Rangers can send Game 2 winner C.J. Wilson and Colby Lewis to face the Yankees in Arlington on Friday and Saturday while saving Lee for Game 3.

That's the great thing about what Lee accomplished at Tropicana Field.

The Rangers - for the first time ever - have options to weigh and plans to make for a League Championship Series.

No player for either team will have more to say about who gets to this World Series than the man who beat the Yankees in Games 1 and 5 of the last World Series.

Postseason wonder

Cliff Lee remained unbeaten in four postseason series:

W-L ERA IP H BB SO

2010 ALDS 2-0 1.13 16 11 0 21

Career 7-0 1.44 56 1/3 38 6 54

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