Myers, Victorino Give Phils 2-0 Lead

Phillies 5, Brewers 2

PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 2 -- He would still do much more with his right arm over the course of these next couple hours to win this game as he would in these few moments with his bat or his batting eye, neither of which was much to speak of. Brett Myers did, after all, hit .069 this season, awful even for a pitcher, and the left-hander he was facing with two outs in the second inning, Milwaukee's CC Sabathia, was only the biggest, most indestructible pitcher in this postseason. Normally, the Philadelphia Phillies would have been happy if Myers simply didn't hurt himself.

But the big man on the mound was laboring, and the crowd at Citizens Bank Park on Thursday night was starting to get into the at-bat, and Myers was swinging from his heels on the off-chance that he might actually connect. The duel went on for six, seven, eight pitches, until, on the ninth pitch, with the crowd on its feet, Sabathia threw a 97-mph pitch inches off the plate, which Myers took.

It was ball four, and as Myers jogged to first base you'd have thought he had just hit a grand slam, the way the Phillies' dugout exploded in appreciation and the crowd of 46,208 erupted.

In actuality, the grand slam came two batters later, off the bat of Shane Victorino, the blow that would deliver the Phillies to an eventual 5-2 victory in Game 2 of the National League Division Series, send the series to Milwaukee with the Brewers in a 2-0 hole and bring into focus all sorts of uncomfortable questions about Sabathia.

But it was Myers's stunning, professional at-bat that made the whole thing possible. And as the quartet of Philadelphia base runners returned triumphantly to the dugout, their teammates swarmed Victorino first, then Myers.

"That was a very good at-bat," Phillies shortstop Jimmy Rollins said. "Maybe that's why CC left that slider up to Shane -- because he had to work so hard to get there."

As for the questions about Sabathia, they are these: Why has he followed up another tremendous regular season -- one in which he lifted his team to the playoffs through sheer will, selflessness and vast talent -- with another poor showing in October? Was this the final appearance in a Brewers uniform for the hulking free-agent-to-be? And perhaps most critically, was Sabathia finally feeling the effects of a fourth consecutive start on three days' rest?

One or more of those questions was surely on the minds of everyone in the Brewers' dugout as Sabathia was removed from the game in the fourth -- an inning that featured three more Phillies base runners and a 10-pitch at-bat by the suddenly Ted Williams-esque Myers. As he departed, having allowed 10 base runners in all, Sabathia muttered to himself, shook his head and pounded his fist once into his glove.

"I don't think starting on three days' rest had anything to do with it," Sabathia said. "I just didn't finish, just didn't make pitches. That's honestly all that happened tonight."

In his previous start, the Brewers' regular season finale, Sabathia, a July trade acquisition from Cleveland, had pitched his new team to the wild-card title with a nine-inning, four-hit gem -- his third straight start on short rest -- undoubtedly adding millions to a free-agent contract that could cost some team as much as $150 million this winter.

But Thursday night, Sabathia gave up doubles to three of the first seven batters he faced, the last of which, a run-scoring liner into the left field corner by Pedro Feliz in the second, set the stage for Myers's pivotal at-bat.

Myers swung feebly at Sabathia's first two pitches, a 95-mph fastball and an 86-mph change-up. But then Sabathia threw ball one, and when Myers got a splinter of wood on the next pitch, dribbling a foul toward the first base coach's box, the crowd roared in mock applause.

Then . . . another ball. Another foul. A slider away for ball three, the crowd's applause now turning serious. A fastball that Myers dribbled foul toward the third base dugout, breaking his bat. A new bat. Sabathia stood on the mound and wiped sweat from his brow.

"I wasn't trying to be a hero," Myers said. "I was just trying to work him. We were just trying to get his pitch count up."

By this point, the crowd was on its feet, waving white rally towels and screaming, as Sabathia peered in for the catcher's sign. When his 97-mph fastball missed, the roar was bigger than the one an inning and a half earlier, when Myers had escaped a bases-loaded, one-out jam with a double-play grounder. It was, in fact, virtually indistinguishable from that which would greet Victorino's grand slam two batters later.

"I know I'm a terrible hitter," Myers said, "but . . . that's one of the freakish things about baseball. A guy who can't hit a lick can go up there and battle a great pitcher like CC."

Myers would go to the mound five more times after that, tossing seven sharp innings in all against the Brewers' power-packed lineup -- an outcome nearly as surprising as that of the walk he drew against Sabathia, given the beat downs Myers absorbed in his last two regular-season starts.

But years from now when they talk of Brett Myers in Philadelphia, they won't remember those seven innings half as much as the time he battled CC Sabathia for nine riveting pitches and then jogged to first. The best at-bat of his life was made from the opposite end of those 60 feet, six inches.