Defending Champs Get Hit by Rockies

Colorado Evens Division Series: Rockies 5, Phillies 4

PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 8 -- The champ stepped back into the ring this week at long last, his first title defense. And he looked -- well, different. Success had served him well. What he lost in hunger and sleekness, he gained in swagger and sheen. And then Thursday afternoon, the champ -- the Philadelphia Phillies -- got hit square in the mouth. And when it came time to answer, the champ realized he didn't have the same tools he used to have. He didn't have the hammer.

The Phillies on Thursday lost a game they probably would have won a year ago, when they were slugging their way to the World Series title. The Colorado Rockies took them down at Citizens Bank Park, 5-4, in Game 2 of the National League Division Series, squaring the series at a game apiece as it moves to snowy, frigid Denver for Saturday night's Game 3.

In a game that exposed the Phillies' perilously thin pitching, one-time ace Cole Hamels departed after five shaky innings (then, in a twist, bolted for the hospital, where his wife was in labor with their first child), and Manager Charlie Manuel nearly emptied his bullpen -- and his starting rotation, to boot -- in a furious, futile attempt to come back from a 4-0 deficit and snatch a victory.

"I was trying to win the game," Manuel said. "We had a hell of a chance to get back in the game."

Ultimately, the Phillies did get back in the game, knocking out Rockies starter Aaron Cook and putting up three runs in the sixth inning -- with a powerful left-right-left combination in the middle of their lineup, the major damage coming on Raúl Ibáñez's two-run single off reliever José Contreras -- but their makeshift bullpen gave up a critical fifth run to the Rockies in the seventh, and in the final innings they lacked their old finishing kick.

Rockies closer Huston Street collected the final three outs for the save, draining the life out of a crowd of 46,528 that had grown accustomed, through last year's title run, to winning games such as these.

The Rockies, who had the best record in the NL (74-48) beginning on the day (May 29) Jim Tracy took over as their manager through the end of the season, return home for the next two games, with temperatures expected to be in the mid-30s and snow in the forecast.

"It's huge," said catcher Yorvit Torrealba, whose two-run homer off Hamels in the fourth, Torrealba's first since May 6, was the game's biggest hit. "We've been playing really well at home, especially in the last month and a half. "We're going back home to play -- our crowd and our fans."

The circumstances behind the loss has left the Phillies scrambling to piece together its rotation in Denver. Two of the possible Game 3 starters, right-hander Joe Blanton and left-hander J.A. Happ, were pressed into duty Thursday -- with Manuel desperate to cobble together outs from a bullpen that has imploded on him in recent weeks -- and the desperation was compounded by the fact Happ took a line drive off his lower leg and had to leave the game.

Manuel was bringing in so many current and ex-starters -- first Blanton, then Happ, then Brett Myers -- that you half-expected to look down at the Phillies' bullpen and see Curt Schilling, Steve Carlton and Robin Roberts warming up. (The only person, in fact, you knew for certain would not be warming up was former closer Brad Lidge.)

"I was making moves out there that, if I could've picked some other things to do, I would have probably did it," Manuel said, in his typical homespun way. "Funny game. That's how you've got to play it sometimes."

Manuel indicated afterward that the choice for Game 3 is likely to come down to Blanton, who threw only 19 pitches Thursday, and veteran Pedro Martínez. But Happ said he wanted to be considered as well. Asked if his leg injury precluded him from starting Saturday night, Happ said, "Absolutely not."

It was the bullpen's state of emergency that set in motion Philadelphia's rotation scramble. A year ago, if Manuel's starting pitcher got him to the sixth inning, he would have had the remaining 12 outs all lined up, with left-hander J.C. Romero and right-hander Ryan Madson the primary bridges to Lidge.

But this year, Romero is injured, Lidge is fully incapable of pitching in a meaningful situation and Madson, as Manuel's most reliable late-inning man, must be held back for a potential save situation.

"When you've got a bullpen that was set like ours was, and with the way our starting pitching was last year . . . our bullpen kind of stayed intact," Manuel said. "This year, from day one, our bullpen -- we've kind of had to patch it together."

All in all, Thursday's was an un-champ-like performance from the champ. Pitchers throwing to the wrong bases. Potent hitters letting opposing pitchers off the hook. An ace who, perhaps distracted by real life, wasn't as sharp as usual.

But the darker question, and one the champ now has to grapple with, is whether he has lost his edge.