GANNETT CONTENTONE
Mike Lopresti: Gannett sports columnist
Originally published: October 16, 2009
Phillies let this one go, but will it matter?
By MIKE LOPRESTI, Gannett
LOS ANGELES - Dangerous business, to be wasting chances in October. Like standing on a freeway, hoping the 18-wheelers keep missing.
How did the Philadelphia Phillies squander Friday at Dodger Stadium? Let us count the ways.
• Seven remarkable innings of ageless two-hit pitching by Pedro Martinez - three months after the Phillies grabbed him from the discard pile, and 17 days after he last appeared in a game.
• The absolute inability of the Los Angeles Dodgers to come up with a timely hit. In two games of the National League Championship Series, they are 3-for-20 with runners in scoring position, 1-for-14 from the sixth inning on.
• The perfect double play ball by Russell Martin that might have helped quell a Dodger rally in the eighth. Except on the relay, second baseman Chase Utley sent the throw into the Phillies dugout. Not to be confused with the relay he sent into the Phillies dugout the night before in game 1.
Put that all together, and what do you have, besides a 2-1 Los Angeles victory and a 1-1 tie in the series as it shifts to Philadelphia?
Good karma for the Dodgers, certainly, after they scored the winning run on a bases loaded walk to Andre Ethier in the eighth.
Bad tidings for the Phillies, maybe, who were close to taking a 2-0 lead home and handing it Cliff Lee. That, time will have to tell us.
"We play day to day," manager Charlie Manuel said. "We've bounced back before and we'll bounce back again."
The Phillies being down is not the issue. The Dodgers being up, when they could have been dangling over a cliff, is the issue.
"You don't want," Joe Torre said, "too high a mountain to climb."
Let's round up all the culpable Phillies, and see if anyone seems troubled.
J.A. Happ, about that ball four to Ethier.
"It felt good leaving my hand. {lcub}hellip{rcub} it was close, but not close enough.
"My job is to come in and throw strikes. It's on me."
Manuel, about taking out Martinez for a pinch-hitter in the eighth, when he was breezing along on a two-hitter.
"To me, he was done."
Actually, Martinez afterward proclaimed himself "pretty fresh," but understood leaving, having thrown 87 pitches more than two weeks after his last work.
Plus, he's 37. Know how grizzled that is in this series? Martinez was winning 10 games as a Dodger rookie the same year Clayton Kershaw - Los Angeles' game 1 starter - was reporting to kindergarten.
"I would have loved to go one more (inning)," he said. "That is the temptation of pushing it. If you push it, what happens the next time?
"After 17 days, I think seven innings is good enough."
Chase Utley, about those errant missiles from second base {lcub}hellip{rcub}
"Yesterday, I forced it," he said of game 1. Same thing Friday?
" None whatsoever. I had plenty of time to turn it. I just didn't make a good throw."
Maybe you're wondering about a mental block. That can happen to infielders. But Manuel isn't.
"He can correct that. Chase is better than that," he said. "I know it plays a part in the game, and so does he.
"He's the one guy in the world that will work on it and correct it."
So the Phillies don't appear particularly unsettled. But instead of in control, they are now in a fight, with this series off to a delicious start.
Thursday, the two teams combined for 14 runs, 22 hits and four home runs.
Friday, all both lineups could manage together were one run and six hits through the seventh inning, shut down by two formerly unemployed pitchers.
Vicente Padilla was cut by Texas in August before he became a Dodger. Martinez was unsigned by anyone in July before he became a Philly.
"I kept my experience working," Martinez said.
"I marvel," Torre said.
Padilla called the game "more important than I've ever pitched in my life, and I was very emotional."
Quite a day, just because of a pitching duel nobody could have imagined eight weeks ago. And then Russell's ground ball led to Utley's error, and all that only happened because Russell couldn't lay down a sacrifice bunt.
"You know what I call that?" Manuel said. "I call that baseball."
More to come.
Contact Mike Lopresti at mlopresti@gannett.com
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ABOUT MIKE
Quote: "Of course, I have to say who won. But I'd better say more. If not, I'm useless. They don't need me. I have to give readers something extra than what they've seen on TV. Or why read?"
Favorite sport: college basketball.
Career: Sportswriter, (Richmond, Ind.) Palladium-Item, 1970-1981; Gannett News Service and Gannett ContentOne, since 1982.
First GNS assignment: Super Bowl XVI.
Born: Richmond, Ind.
Ball State University graduate.
Married since 1976.
In the press box
World Series: 27
Final Four: 28
Super Bowl: 26
NBA Finals: 25
Masters: 25
Olympics: 14
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