"The question to Matt Garza after Wednesday night's game was how he felt about opposing a former Cy Young Award winner: Did he have to raise his level of performance based on the other starting pitcher? Maybe it's time to start asking the other pitchers what it's like to be matched up with someone like Garza. "I hope so," Garza said. The Tampa Bay Rays' right-hander became the first American League pitcher to win five games after he outdueled Seattle's Cliff Lee for eight innings during the Rays 8-3 victory in front of 14,627 – the second-smallest crowd to attend a game at Safeco Field in the park's 10-year history. Garza improved to 5-1 as the Rays improved their major league-best record to 20-7 and stayed one game ahead of the Yankees in the American League East. It's the best AL start since the 2005 Chicago White Sox. The Rays are 11-1 on the road, 2-0 on this nine-game swing through the West Coast. Wednesday's win clinched their fourth straight road series and seventh series of the season. It came on another cold night against another former Cy Young Award winner. The Rays are now 3-1 this season against former Cy Young winners, having beaten Jake Peavy (National League, 2007), Zack Greinke (American League, 2009) and now Lee (AL, 2008). Their lone loss was against CC Sabathia (AL, 2007). In fact, the Rays are 6-1 in their last seven games against a pitcher with a Cy Young on his resume. "To beat guys like that you have to pitch well," Rays manager Joe Maddon said. "Of course you have to score some runs, but you have to pitch well, and we did that." Garza, who does not hide the fact that his goal is to be a Cy Young candidate this season and to have his name mentioned in the same sentences as Greinke, Lee and Sabathia, allowed five hits and two runs in eight innings." http://www2.tbo.com/content/2010/may/05/060650/live-updates-rays-mariners/sports-rays/
It was 2-2 after the 7th...I wouldn't say he "outdueled" him...If the M's score one more run it's Brandon League Time in the 8th and M's do ok. As it was, Lee went out for the 8th, got dinked around (turning double-play balls into errors didn't help, Jo. Wilson) and then Sean White got lit up in the 9th. (Well, not lit up, but anytime your pitcher gets an ovation for throwing a 3-0 strike, you know it's not going well)
