GANNETT CONTENTONE
Mike Lopresti: Gannett sports columnist
Originally published: November 1, 2009
Phillies fall back in Game 3
PHILADELPHIA - For more than an hour, the huddled masses of Citizens Bank Park waited for the rain to stop. Once it did and the game began, they waved white towels, chanted blue taunts, and roared as Cole Hamels tried to turn back the clock to 2008 - which in this city was a very good year.
It worked for awhile.
But long after midnight — Halloween and Hamels and October having come and gone — Game 3 of the World Series finally grunted to the finish with an 8-5 New York victory, and a message.
The Yankees are in charge. The Phillies title repeat is at a crossroads.
It is more than the 2-1 lead Series New York now owns. The bad signs for Philadelphia are starting to stack up like firewood for the winter.
• The Phillies blew a 3-0 lead Saturday night. Not the way to build momentum against a confident pack of heavy hitters.
• In the duel of cleanup bashers, Alex Rodriguez finally arrived at the World Series with a home run. Ryan Howard kept swinging and missing. Three more strikeouts, which runs his count to nine.
The Phillies found one way to keep Rodriguez in the ballpark, anyway. They hit him twice with a pitch.
• The 2009 puzzle of Cole Hamels was there for all the World Series to see. His habit has been to breeze along in promising fashion, then suddenly swerve into a ditch.
He didn't allow a hit in the first three innings Saturday. A few minutes later, he was walking off the mound having been relieved of his duties, trailing 5-3.
By then, Rodriguez had homered off a television camera. An even worse indignity came when Andy Pettitte tied the game with a bloop single - the first Yankee pitcher to drive in a World Series run in 45 years.
Pettitte hit a curveball, and the fact the 2008 World Series hero was throwing a slow breaking ball to an American League pitcher tells you all you need to know about the plight of Cole Hamels.
He has not survived the sixth inning in four postseason starts.
• New York is starting to find multiple live bats, and there are any number of American League teams who know what happens if the Yankees start attacking en masse. Nick Swisher came into Game 3 with a .114 postseason batting average and only four hits since the playoffs began. Whether he should be benched had nearly become a daily New York media question to manager Joe Girardi.
Swisher doubled and homered.
Hideki Matsui is not even in the lineup this weekend because there is no designated hitter. His only chance was to pinch hit in the eighth inning. He hit a ball into the left field stands.
"That's why they're who they are," Hamels had said Friday after the Yankees method of attacks.
• The pitching matchup for Game 4 Sunday night is C.C. Sabathia vs. Joe Blanton. Who would you pick?
Sabathia is going on short rest, but that shouldn't unduly encourage the towel wavers of Philadelphia. He worked on short rest in the American League Championship Series and gave the Angels five hits in eight innings.
"It's not necessarily something that you want to do a lot of during the course of a long season," Girardi said. "But we're not in a long season anymore."
Sabathia's view?
"It feels good for them to have confidence in you, especially in these situations."
This situation is the chance to push Philadelphia back into a dark corner. If New York wins Sunday night to go ahead 3-1, the Phillies would have to take three straight, two of them in the Bronx.
That has the feel of standing in front of a cement truck going downhill.
Game 4 ended at 12:42 a.m. with the rain again falling on Philadelphia. It fit the Phillies' predicament. They have to find a way to beat Sabathia, and it'll take more than white towels.
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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