Seriously, What's Going On With Cliff Lee?

Cliff Lee didn't get the win against Toronto Monday night, but he did go nine innings, striking out five and allowing zero runs. The outing lowered Lee's WHIP and ERA to 0.67 each. Lee has now thrown up a goose egg in 50 of his 53 innings pitched this season and his strikeout-to-walk ratio is 44/4.

All this from a guy who had to earn his spot in the rotation in spring training.

So, after a seventh straight quality start, Lee's performances beg the question, how exactly is he doing it?

Let's look at some numbers and then attempt to find any reasons for Lee's success.

First, Lee is throwing more strikes than ever before, but not by a huge amount. He's thrown 68% of his pitches for strikes, compared to a previous high of 66% in 2005 and a career average of just under 65%.

Lee's BABIP has always been around the league of .300 with a career low of .282 in 2005. It was .300 in 2006 and .304 in 2007. This season it's a measly .226. That means the Indians defense has been playing very well behind Lee and he's also been lucky. This was certainly the case Monday when Asdrubal Cabrera turned the 14th unassisted triple play in Major League history, Victor Martinez made a shoestring jumping catch on a line shot in the ninth and Franklin Guiterrez pulled down a ball in the gap.

To be blunt, Lee's certainly been fortunate so far this season and this luck won't continue forever. That BABIP should creep its way toward the .300 line and put Lee in more difficult pitching situations, which in turn should lead to more runs allowed.

A more obvious reason for Lee's exceptional start is his low walk totals. After yielding two on Monday, Lee now has given up all of four free passes. Keeping in mind that Lee has always had decent control, he's still walking 4% fewer batters per plate appearance than his career-best 6.2% in 2005. Right now, his BB/PA stands at an incredible 2.1%. Meanwhile Lee's strikeouts per plate appearance has skyrocketed to 23%. His previous career high is 17%.

What's all this mean? Well, if you were keeping track Lee's previous best strike percentage, BABIP, BB/PA and K/BB were all in 2005 -- the same year Lee went 18-5. The difference between 2005 and '06 and '07 was that Lee threw more strikes, walked fewer and had a lower BABIP. The same is true this season, except in a much more drastic manner.

As we saw, Lee's not just beating his career-best on the ratios above, he's destroying each one. It's easy to conclude that Lee won't be able to keep up these numbers. No one could. But it's not unreasonable to believe Lee will be a very effective and successful pitcher throughout the entire season.

We saw what Lee can do when he slightly raises his strike percentage and strike out totals while lowering his walks. If Lee continues to throw more strikes and fewer balls, even if not to this extent, he should still be a good pitcher, much like he was in '05. The biggest unknown is how high that BABIP stat will rise, especially when Lee stops striking out as many hitters and allows more balls in play.

Remember in 2005 his BABIP dropped by about 18 points below his career average. With an improved Indians defense, Lee has a chance to be around that number by season's end. If he is, then Lee will have matched or bested his 2005 numbers on all the aforementioned statistics.

By improving on these stats in 2005, Lee posted career-best numbers. Doing it again in 2007 could mean an even better season for Lee.