The other day I was writing a post giving some love to the Mariners have have been playing at or above expectations in such a godawful season.  As you can see, that post was never finished.  One of the guys spotlighted in that post was Cliff Lee.

And for obvious reasons.  Lee has been pitching the best baseball of his Cy Young winning career for the Mariners this year.  But while his name pops up all across the leaderboards, one stat stands out: K/BB.

At the time of my draft Lee’s K/BB stood at 14.25.  One start later it is up to 15.  That is ridiculously high.  Roy Halladay is in second place with an outstanding 6.07 K/BB.  Cliff Lee’s is 15.  For every walk Lee issues, he strikes out 15 guys. 

This was definitely a point of emphasis in my unpublished draft, but I was going back and forth about whether I should make a big deal about the K/BB record Lee is chasing.  I settled on ignoring it or at least downplaying it, but now that Rob Neyer has brought it up we may as well talk about it.

Brett Saberhagen’s 1994 set the K/BB record at 11 when he struck out 143 and walked just 14.  11 is less than 15, meaning Lee is “on pace” to break the record.

Exciting!  Records are a lot of fun.  Why was I reluctant to bring it up?

K/BB is volatile.  Before his last start Lee had struck out 57 and walked 4.  Against the Padres he added 3 strikeouts and no walks to bring his K/BB up to 15.  If he had walked 2, however, like he did against the Angels a couple weeks ago, that K/BB drops all the way to 10 and below the record pace.

2 walks?  This is Cliff Lee we’re talking about!  He’s never going to walk 2 in a game again!  Well, he better not have many more of those 3 strikeout games either otherwise those awful single walk performances are going to catch up with him and bring him below Saberhagen’s pace.

I’m rooting for Lee, but this is going to be a tough one.