Ugh! Phillies make a stand, take a lead, leave Dodgers fans speechless
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Top of the eighth, a little game of cat-and-mouse going on. Joe Torre leaves lefty reliever Hong-Chih Kuo in the game to try to get Ryan Howard out. Howard’s batting average hovers around .200 but as I noted in my initial post this evening, the beefy slugger is one of the big keys to the Philadelphia offense. The crowd rises, sensing the moment, that getting Howard out this late in the game will be key. But he grounds a single up the middle and it’s curtains for Kuo, who is replaced by Cory Wade.
Down goes Pat Burrell, up comes Shane Victorino, who was the key Phillies figure in the near scrum Sunday night. Victorino has been the crowd’s villain all night and with him at the plate the boos loop around Dodger Stadium and many of the faithful rise to shout their unhinged disdain at the plucky center fielder.
Wade pitches, Victorino swings –- plunk -– from up here in the stands behind home plate the ball looks like a liner, then it rises a bit, then it sort of fishes and begins to bend and then it rises just a little more … until it sneaks over the right-field fence, a two-run homer. GAME TIED. UGH.
The crowd sits and goes silent. I look back and Bognet, the guy in the Ryan Howard jersey, is pumping his fists and the guy who has been giving him a heavy dose of grief all night long looks like he’s sitting in the pews watching a funeral. 5-5. Tied up. OK, it’s not even over yet. There are two outs and in comes Dodgers closer Jonathan Broxton and from the stunned crowd around me I can hear very, very little –- except the lone, loud shouts from the only other Phillies fan nearby other than Bognet.
Back to the game. Same inning. Carlos Ruiz singles. Up steps Matt Stairs, a somewhat pudgy dude who looks like he should be the driver of a beer delivery truck. Maybe that’s how he’d be making a living now except for the fact that Stairs, a baseball elder, has always been able to do one thing in this great game: tar and feather pitches. And that’s exactly what he does, launching an absolute missile that arcs hard into the dark night and settles in the right-field bleaches -- BOOM, another two-run home run, and this was one serious shot.
The air just got sucked out of this once-rocking stadium. This game is still going but the Phillies -– up 7-5 -- are now suddenly well in control … of this game, and, right now, this series. Dodgers up next … what a game.
-- Kurt Streeter
