"With his right knee bleeding, Cliff Lee packed his locker at Nationals Park. He spent only five hours in the building Thursday, but if he can pitch like this every night, all the Phillies will ask of their $120 million ace is that he be in the dugout when the game begins.

For the second straight night, the Phillies gathered around their starting pitcher to celebrate, this latest complete game a brisk, 4-0 victory over the Nationals. Not since 1999 have Phillies starters finished back-to-back games.

It's only April, but here's Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee each throwing nine innings on consecutive nights. This is what you envisioned, right?

"I want to throw nine innings every time I take the mound," Lee said. "I hope Roy does it every day before me, too."

"I pictured all five of our guys completing games," Charlie Manuel said. "What the hell?"

In 2 hours and 6 minutes, Lee dismantled the Washington lineup. He struck out 12, missing out on tying a career-high by one. Nationals hitters whiffed on 17 of Lee's 99 pitches, a simply astounding number.

"I was pretty much putting the ball where I wanted to most of the time," Lee said.

Halladay and Lee matched Paul Byrd and Curt Schilling, who threw complete games against the St. Louis Cardinals on May 11-12, 1999.

On Thursday, Lee did not throw his curveball until the sixth inning. And he still struck out four batters on it. He threw seven curves, and the Nationals swung and missed at five of them.

"Those few innings right there, it was a big pitch for me," Lee said. "Early in the game, I was locating fastballs and keeping the ball down."

Was that the plan to hold off on the curveball?

"It just kind of happened that way," Lee said.

For the first five innings, Lee was matched by Nationals righthander Jordan Zimmermann, who is coming off Tommy John surgery. Through five, both pitchers had faced one batter over the minimum combined. Those five innings took exactly an hour to play.

But on the second swing of the sixth inning, Carlos Ruiz ended the perfect game, no-hitter, and shutout for Zimmermann by hitting a curveball just over the left-field wall for a solo home run."