Victorious Phils Return to NLCS

The Phils looked finished in this one when they allowed the Rockies to score 3 runs in the bottom of the 8th-inning to take a 4-2 lead. The Champs were on the ropes, playing away from home, the Colorado crowd mounting behind its resurgent Rockies team in their dazzling comeback on a night when runs were a precious commodity. However, these Champs excel with their backs to the wall.

"The Phillies showed the heart of a lion," spun ESPN commentator & Hall-of-Famer Dave Winfield after the game.

For the 2nd-straight night it was Jimmy Rollins getting things started in the 9th-inning. This time, the Phils trailed 4-2 when, with 1 out, the Phils' captain singled off of Colorado's impeccable closer Huston Street. For the 2nd game in a row, Rollins' clutch hitting paved the way and the Phillies played situational offense, rather than their calling card the long ball, to win it.

They were down to their last out when Utley stepped to the plate. He had already made an incredibly athletic double-play to preserve the lead in the 6th, followed by a remarkably poised throw under a hurdling base-runner in the 8th (which Rollins uncharacteristically couldn't catch, an error that cost 2 runs). Now, it was Utley's turn to keep the rally and the team alive with the bat. He had already reached base safely 3-out-of-4 times on the night. "I think he is absolutely recognized as the gamer in our game," Phils president David Montgomery has said. "I don't think there's any question about that."

Utley finds a way to get on base and to win games. In Game 3, Utley sold a foul off his leg as a base hit that led to the game's winning run. Teammate and fellow All-Star Shane Victorino, who homered in the 1st-inning of Game 4, said of Utley's clever way on base in Game 3: "With Chase, he's that kind of guy. He's going to play the game hard. He probably felt it but he said, 'Hey, I'm going to take off, nobody is saying anything.' And it turned into a pivotal play in the game."

Back to Game 4: 9th-inning, Victorino at 1st with 2 out.

Utley takes ball 1. Victorino moves to 2nd on 'fielder's indifference.' Utley looks at ball 2. Patience is his strength. It's what made him the team leader in On-Base Percentage (OBP) at .397 (10th in the NL) in 2009. Utley fouls one off. It's now 2 balls and 2 strikes. Utley is down to his and the Phillies' last strike of the game. It suddenly seems an impossible dream to win 2 in Colorado, where the Rockies compiled a 51-30 record during the regular season, the 2nd best home record in the NL.

The play-by-play announcer on ESPN radio counts the Phillies out in this one. After all, they're down by 2 runs in the 9th against one of the game's best closers in a contest where runs were a precious commodity. The Phillies had managed only 2 through 8 2/3 innings. The announcer begins talking about Game 5 in Philadelphia, which now seems inevitable. He admires the Rockies comeback in the 8th-inning to take the lead in front of the home crowd, recognizes the momentum in the fans' cheers and Rockies' faces. He underestimates the Fightin' Phils. He adds, obligatorily, as an afterthought, "Of course, this one isn't over yet."

Utley remains patient at the plate, playing his game: focus and baseball smarts. He takes ball 3, a full count. Suddenly, it's interesting. Utley looks at ball 4. He's aboard to make it 1st and 2nd with 2-out. His walk represents the tying run at 1st and enables Ryan Howard a chance to take the lead with one swing of the bat.

Utley finished the NLDS with a .556 OBP and .429 batting average, both team-leading. Utley, who hit .204 in September and went hitless in 2 October regular season games, is as responsible as anyone on the team that the Phillies are returning to the NLCS for the 2nd-year in a row. And so is the Big Man:

It was at this point that someone in the room turned to me and said, "Howard could win it with 1 swing." "A double would be good," I replied. "That would plate 2." It felt, somehow, more reasonable, not asking for too much. Yet, it was asking a lot. The count ran to 2-1. Ryan Howard of 2007 might have struck out in the at-bat. The struggling Howard of 2008's 1st 11 playoff games might have grounded out in frustrating defeat.

This was title-defending Ryan Howard, the ideal cleanup man who finished the series with a .375 Ave. and 6 team-leading RBIs. Utley's walk with 2-out in the 9th allowed Ryan Howard to answer the call, once again. Howard was not content to go back to Philly to finish it. He roped a double off the right field wall to tie the game at 4-4. "There's pressure, I guess, but I don't mind it," Howard said. "I wanted to be in that situation."

Next, it was up to Jayson Werth. Werth had already homered in the 6th-inning. In this 2-out 9th-inning tie game, he did what he has done all postseason, for that matter all season long: Werth came through and enabled his team to retake the lead on a single to right field, a perfect piece of situational hitting. It was something the Phillies did so well in this series, showed another side in perfect execution small-ball to win games.

Werth's exuberant reaction, clapping his hands and calling out to his teammates in a strong show of emotion after driving in Howard for the winning run said it all: This Phillies team would not quit, would not settle, they have too much fire. They aren't the Phillies of yesteryear. These are the defending World Champions. As hard as it is to remember for Philly fans, they will gladly remind us until it's burned into our consciousness. Even then, when we doubt them, they will show it once again. They are winners. Even against the Rockies, even in Colorado's freezing hostile confines.

"We talk about it all the time," said Werth. "One day at a time. One game at a time. One pitch at a time. That's the mentality of this team... We're very calm and very loose, all at the same time. So the mood in the dugout was very calm, very professional. We knew what we had to do. We had a job to do in the 9th... We always feel like we're in the game. We just keep grinding it out."

The Rockies were 83-1 when leading after 8-innings during 2009. The Phillies didn't mind. They were happy to win it in the 9th. They were willing to do it against Huston Street, who was 35-37 in saves in 2009, but who finished the NLDS series against the Phils with an 0-2 record.

Meanwhile, Brad Lidge did it again. Where Huston Street and Ryan Franklin, 2 of the NL's best closers in 2009, failed in the postseason, Lidge has thus far shined. Inconceivably, impossibly, against every odd and statistic there is, Lidge has "Turned Back the Clock" to 2008's magic, wrote Phila. Inquirer turned ESPN.com analyst Jayson Stark of his Game 3 save. How could it be?

Stark writes: "He stood on the mound, waiting for the signal that the TV commercial break was over and it was time to pitch, Jimmy Rollins looked him right in the eyeballs and said, "You're going to get them out." "Yeah," Lidge replied. "What's that mean?" Rollins retorted.

And for a moment, Lidge seemed startled by the challenge. Then he looked Rollins back in his own eyeballs and told him: "You're right. We're going to get this done right here, right now."

And then -- whaddayaknow -- he did exactly that."

Less than 20 hours later, Lidge did it again, worked out of a jam to record his 2nd 9th-inning save in as many nights.

"That might be my favorite game ever," said reliever Scott Eyre, who contributed by getting the 1st 2 Rockies outs in the bottom of the 9th for the Fightin'. Then it was, what else? 'Lights Out' Lidge time. Lidge came in for a 1-out save, a strikeout of Tulowitzki to end the game and the series in the same fashion he ended the World Series a year ago.

In Game 4, it was a team effort. It was Cliff Lee silencing the Rockies for 1 earned run in 7 1/3 innings (he allowed just 2 ER in 16 1/3 innings in the series). It was Jimmy Rollins providing the 9th-inning spark, Chase Utley playing offensive setup man for Ryan Howard's timely heroics, which we've come to expect. Then, finally, it was Jayson Werth-- All-Star Jayson Werth-- coming through in the clutchest of clutch. Werth led the Phils with a .929 Slugging Percentage, a .500 OBP and 2 HRs in the 4-games. Lastly, it was Brad Lidge emerging from a storybook to finish it. In all, it was a team effort. A World Champion team effort.

It was just the 2nd time since 1903 that a team trailing by multiple runs with 1 out left in the game came back to both win that game and clinch a series. It was another amazing game in a truly incredible series between these 2 teams. You gotta give the Rockies credit for challenging the Champs in every inning of every game after Game 1, which the Phils won 5-1. Game 2: Rockies 5-4. Game 3: Phillies 6-5. Game 4: Phillies 5-4. Several lead changes and plenty of spectacular execution by both clubs and superb moves by both exceptional managers made for a series much better than its 3-games-to-1 outcome would suggest.

Rockies manager Jim Tracy, who will be NL Manager of the Year after leading the Rockies to an unlikely playoff birth and a 74-42 record since taking over on May 29th, when they were 10 games under .500, said this after the game:

"We lost to the defending world champions, and they did it in a way, down to their last strike and scoring 3 runs that shows why they're the defending world champions."

In my post, "Preview of Phillies-Rockies Series" on Oct. 5th, I predicted the Phillies would win the NLDS in 4 games. I was right. However, if I'd known then what I know now, I might have seen it differently. I respect those Rockies differently today, when I realize how good they really are. I also admire the Phils more than ever for playing small ball, situational hitting, for batting around .500 with runners in scoring position in this series and are for beating the resilient Rockies twice in their home stadium and beating them 3-games-to-1.

"These couple of games have been kind of character builders," Howard said after the game. "This is just step 2 of where we're trying to get to."

"We've got a lot of swagger on this team," added Lidge. "And these guys don't just want to be known as one-time World Series winners. We want to be in the same sentence as some of the great teams that have ever played."