Nick Lee rebounded from early struggles to finish strong in Arizona

Left-hander Nick Lee was able to rebound from one tough Oct. 27 outing against Mesa to have a solid finish in the Arizona Fall League for the Glendale Desert Dogs.

In that game, Lee surrendered four hits and two runs over 1 1/3 innings with one walk and two strikeouts.

But Lee was able to post a 1.54 ERA in 10 overall outings. He had 14 strikeouts, allowing 10 walks and 10 hits in 11 2/3 innings.

The impressive thing for pitching coach Sam Narron was seeing Lee, 25, display the calmness necessary to get out of situations with men on base as the season progressed.

"Nick's got a special assortment, too," Narron said. "He was out there to find a groove for what works for him. He had some spots where his numbers were fantastic. He got a lot of people out and got a lot of people out easily. But he had some outings where he danced that line a little, but he always made pitches when he needed to, which is the sign of a good reliever. When he had those runners in scoring position, he always seemed to get out of it. Some people just have a knack for it."

Narron said in his final two games against Surprise and Peoria, Lee put it all together. He struck out three batters against Surprise and recorded two outs versus Peoria. Down the stretch, Lee allowed no runs in his final four appearances. It all centered around mixing his fastball and his breaking pitch to confuse hitters.

"His last couple of outings, he settled in to what he'd been working on during that little but of time in instructional league and the start of fall league," Narron said. "I started to see that breaking ball and that fastball have really good life to it.

"The breaking ball had good late action and the fastball started to show some angle that I hadn't seen earlier. He just looked comfortable out there and that's what he needed to get to."

Following a summer in which Lee pitched in 45 games for Double-A Harrisburg. Narron is optimistic how this new-found confidence will help the southpaw Nationals prospect from Texas to get batters out at the next level.

"I keep saying it, it's going to be exciting to see what he can do next year coming off these really positive outings late in the fall league," Narron said.