Comeback!
It didn’t look good for the guys in red after seven innings tonight. They trailed the Dodgers 5-3, with explosive southpaw Hong-Chih Kuo on the hill as the Phils batted in the top of the 8th.
Slugger Ryan Howard singled up the middle to lead off the inning, prompting LA manager Joe Torre to replace Kuo with righthander Cory Wade. After Wade induced a popup from Pat Burrell, switchhitting Shane Victorino smacked a homer into the right field bullpen to deadlock the game! My friend Linkmeister, the Dodger diehard in Honololu, must have been particularly apoplectic that “The Flyin’ Hawaiian” did the deed.
But that wasn’t all for the Phightin’ Phils in that inning. Following the second out, catcher Carlos Ruiz grounded a single past shortstop Rafael Furcal. Phillies manager Charlie Manuel sent up Matt Stairs, looking like a refugee from a softball beer league, to hit for pitcher Ryan Madson. Torre countered with Jonathan Broxton, his ace reliever.
In this chess match, Manuel and my Phillies won the gambit—Stairs crushed a huge homerun deep into the pavilion in Dodger Stadium’s right field, giving the Phils a 7-5 lead! A four-run inning for the good guys!
Still, the Phils needed to record six more outs to seal the deal. Lefty J.C. Romero was on the mound in the bottom of the eighth. He gave up a walk, but that baserunner was quickly erased by a double play. At this point, Manuel brought in closer Brad Lidge, who hadn’t blown a save all season (but had never pitched more than one inning), to face red-hot Manny Ramirez. Manny continued his stupendous postseason, ripping a double to center. Lidge fanned Russell Martin, but Ruiz couldn’t handle the third strike and Martin made it safely to first base, with Ramirez moving to third. Oy vey! However, Lidge retired James Loney to end the inning.
After an uneventful top of the ninth, Lidge returned to the mound. Remember that he’d never pitched more than one inning all season. How would he handle this extra work?
The answer, happily, is that Lidge did a bang-up job! Pinchhitter Nomar Garciaparra hit a routine fly to Victorino in center, Casey Blake quickly whiffed, and Jeff Kent (hitting for Broxton) lined out to thirdbaseman Pedro Feliz to end the contest and give the Phillies a 3-1 lead in the NLCS.
Lidge threw 24 pitches, but with a day off tomorrow he should be ready to roll in Game 5. If he’s needed, that is—the Phils will send out ace starter Cole Hamels on Wednesday to try to clinch the series and move on to the World Series. Hamels pitched seven splendid innings in the opener last Thursday, allowing two runs and striking out eight Dodgers.
As a lifelong phan, I refuse to be an optimist here. The Phillies have been known to dash my hopes ... I vividly remember the Phold, which happened 44 years ago. But I’ll certainly be cheering for them!
Comments
I used to wonder why Yankees fans said Torre mismanaged his bullpen, since he nearly always won anyway. I don’t wonder any more. Kuo was on fire, Wade threw 33 pitches yesterday (he’s becoming the new Scott Proctor!) and Broxton also pitched yesterday, in a 7-2 game.
Broxton may have been tagged as the new Niedenfuer unless they somehow pull this out.
And yes, the local sports guys were ecstatic. Bleeping Victorino is turning into Brian Doyle or Bucky Dent.
I dunno about the Niedenfuer comp. No one will ever mistake Matt Stairs for Ozzie Smith.
Your comment about Kuo reminds me of Game 6 of the 1993 WS. Roger Mason absolutely blew away the Blue Jays in the 6th and 7th, then retired {foreshadowing} Joe Carter to lead off the 8th. But #*^&% Jim Fregosi decided to go lefty-lefty against Olerud, bringing in David West. When that didn’t work, he immediately went to Larry Andersen (why? Alomar and Fernandez were switchhitters). Though Andersen loaded the bases, he wriggled out of the mess ... setting the stage for the execrable Mitch Williams and the aforementioned Carter in the bottom of the 9th.
Why o why did Fregosi pull Mason? He burned two more pitchers with that move, leaving no one but the exhausted (and awful, even when fresh) Williams in the 9th. Mason had already gone 2.1 innings, so he wasn’t going to be available for Game 7. Why not ride the hot hand as long as possible? Why pull him in favor of a craptastic bozo with a 27.00 ERA in the Series (following a 13.50 in the NLCS), and then a geezer whose ERAs in those two series were 12.27 and 15.43? FTR, Mason went 1.17 in the WS and 0.00 in the NLCS.
Sigh…
Wasn’t Ozzie I was thinking of. It was Jack Clark the following day.
At one point a year or two ago the same Jack Clark was the hitting coach for the Dodgers. I hold grudges longer than the team ownership does (although I think it was still Fox then, so no bets that they had any grasp of history anyway).
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