Looking back from a time when starting pitchers just don’t finish what they start like they once did, a season like Cliff Lee’s 2011 seems all the more incredible.
For better or worse, pitchers simply do not last as long into games as they used to. The idea of a pitcher tossing even six complete games in a season sounds like a stretch nowadays, considering no one has reached that benchmark since Chris Sale in 2016.
But 2011 was a bit of a different time, with three major-league pitchers throwing at least six complete games that year.