Gone in an Instant: Phils Stun Dodgers

Phillies 7, Dodgers 5

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 13 -- Up it all went for the Dodgers, in nine pitches. The Philadelphia Phillies poked one homer just beyond the fence. They smacked another one halfway to the next Zip code. But distance didn't even matter. One measured these sorts of shots by the silence they caused, the home team's lead they erased, the series they likely shifted -- if not ended.

Two home runs against a pair of sterling Los Angeles Dodgers relief pitchers in Monday's Game 4 of the NLCS created a near-literal turning point -- a moment of change so sudden, it offered no warning before it came. It just happened, the way coffee spills, the way your apartment loses electricity. And as a result, Los Angeles ended this one as stunned losers, 7-5, against the Philadelphia Phillies at Dodger Stadium, victims of an eighth inning in which its bullpen combusted and Shane Victorino and Matt Stairs cracked a pair of two-run homers.

Because of that change, this series, too, shifted decidedly in Philadelphia's favor. With ace Cole Hamels starting in Wednesday's Game 5, the Phillies now lead this series 3-1. Here, they exposed two Dodgers bullpen stalwarts, Cory Wade (2.27 ERA in the regular season) and Jonathan Broxton (3.13), both among the most important components of a bullpen with a 1.40 ERA this postseason.

"Our bullpen has been great all year," Los Angeles catcher Russell Martin said. "It was tough for them to give up the lead. They've been outstanding the whole year."

This year, entering the eighth with a lead, the Dodgers had a 68-7 record (.907). And on this night, they marched into that territory ahead 5-3, on the brink of evening a series they once trailed 2-0. Decisions made earlier in the game complicated this inning, though. Los Angeles had risked a Derek Lowe start on three days' rest -- all around Dodger Stadium, folks guessed how he would perform as if predicting shaky weather -- but it turned out that Lowe was fine, good for five innings and only two early runs. In fact, he might have been good for more. But he was pulled after the fifth, his best inning of night, which he finished with a Chase Utley strikeout -- his 74th pitch of the night.

"First," Manager Joe Torre said, explaining the rationale, "he was on short rest. He had to work hard every inning, even though he was in the 70s pitch count-wise. It just looked like he was fighting his emotions the whole game."

Torre began using his bullpen with rapid-fire speed. The first three relievers -- Clayton Kershaw, Chan Ho Park and Joe Beimel -- each threw one-third of an inning. Kershaw and Beimel were the two of the three available Los Angeles lefties. The other lefty, Hong-Chih Kuo, pitched a scoreless seventh, and remained in the game as the eighth inning started. Torre needed just six more outs.

To start the inning Kuo allowed a single to lefty Ryan Howard. Innocuous enough, especially because Torre still had Wade, a right-hander who is strong against lefties and righties alike, and Broxton, a hard-throwing sometimes-closer, available.

In came Wade, a 25-year-old rookie who was "one of, like, 30 pitchers in spring training," Torre said, but who threw strikes and forced his way onto the staff. Two pitches into the night, Wade already had an easy out -- a Pat Burrell pop-up.

But that's when the nine-pitch stretch began. That's where two left-handed batters hit homers against two right-handers. That's where Los Angeles lost its grip on this series before the cashier could break change for a Dodger Dog.

The first pitch Wade threw to Victorino, a switch-hitter batting lefty, silenced Dodger Stadium and tied the game at 5. Victorino, with 14 regular season home runs, turned on a knee-high curveball and cranked it into the right field corner. It slipped over the fence by just a few feet. Though this game had none of the on-field scuffling of Game 3, Victorino -- fined for his stare-down with pitcher Hiroki Kuroda one night prior -- had again forced himself into the center of attention.

Before leaving the game, Wade actually had a chance to clean things up. He just about did it, too. He threw three more pitches to two batters. Pedro Feliz lined out to left, good for the second out. But then, Carlos Ruiz singled -- representing the go-ahead run.

Torre rose. And Broxton came out of the bullpen to face the ancient Matt Stairs, a still-bulky 40-year-old lefty acquired late in the season by the Phillies. On the fifth pitch Stairs saw from Broxton, he leaned into it, and blasted it as far as any ball hit this series. The lefty sent a Broxton fastball deep toward right, into the upper part of the bleachers. Ruiz waltzed home. So, too, did Stairs. The Phillies had grabbed a 7-5 lead. Los Angeles didn't know what had hit them.

"We had a lead, gave it up," Broxton later said.

Torre, after the game, refused to second-guess his strategy. Sure, he had no lefties available to pitch to Victorino and Stairs, but Wade entered the night having held left-handers to a .211 average. Lefties were hitting .270 against Broxton.

To finish this one out, Philadelphia relied on its own bullpen, which led the National League in ERA during the regular season. Brad Lidge, this game's 11th and final relief pitcher of the night, came on for a four-out save, a rare move for Manager Charlie Manuel.

"You know what," Manuel said. "I guess it's like the old saying goes: You gotta try it, just to see if it will work."