Lee Looks to Finish the Rockies

Cliff Lee will take the hill for the Phillies Monday night to try to propel his team into their second-straight National League Championship Series.

The Phillies should put away the Wild-Card Rockies if Lee is even half the pitcher he was when he threw a complete-game one-run gem in the NLDS opener. The southpaw used both sides of the plate to keep Rockies hitters guessing and in most cases failing.

It made sense that Lee owned the Rockies. The Colorado lineup struggles against lefties in the first place and especially against Lee who they only managed six hits off of Wednesday.

But, the Rockies will counter with Ubaldo Jimenez who was also nearly unhittable through his first four innings in Game 1. He used a sharp fastball topping out near 100-mph to strike out four Phillies and keep them off balance early but lost his touch in the fifth inning -- eventually getting chased after giving up five runs.

Lee vs. Jimenez 2 should be a good one but this game could wind up coming down to the offenses rather than the pitchers.

That advantage has to go to the Phillies because they have the hot sticks.

Through three games the Phillies as a team batted .313 while slugging .444 and scoring 15 runs. The Rockies during that same stretch only batted .255, slugged .388 and scored just 11 runs.