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November 3, 2009

Prospectus Today

A Player's Game

by Joe Sheehan

Game Five of the World Series was about players. In a postseason where we've spent endless amounts of time talking about the managers and the umpires, we finally got a game in which the players took total control. From Chase Utley's three-run homer in the first inning through Ryan Madson inducing a game-saving double play in the ninth, there was example after example of players making plays, a dearth of mistakes by the non-playing personnel, and when it was over, at least one more game to play.

The drama snuck up on all of us last night. After the Phillies chased A.J. Burnett out in the third inning, giving Cliff Lee a five-run lead, there was an air of inevitability to the proceedings. After he pitched out of a first-and-third, one-out spot in the fifth, allowing just a single run, Lee banged out the next two innings in just 27 pitches, cutting off the path to a Yankee comeback that entailed the Phillies needing to get a lot of outs from their shaky bullpen. When Utley and Raul Ibañez buried Phil Coke even deeper in the Yankee pen with solo homers in the bottom of the seventh, you could hear America flipping to the fourth quarter of the Saints/Falcons game.

The Yankees, though, had a bit more in them. They'd been making better contact against Lee then they did in Game One, and when Lee was let down a bit by his defense in the eighth—Jimmy Rollins was unable to gun down Johnny Damon on a playable grounder—that greater hittability led to two quick runs and his own exit. Lee's performance might not have worked on a different night—he gave up a number of hard-hit gappers—but with the eight runs in his pocket, it got the job done. He'd gotten the Phillies to the six-out mark, which is about as much as you can ever hope for.

In the spot where they'd been failing, the Phillies pen came up big. Chan Ho Park cleaned up Lee's mess, getting three outs—including a sacrifice fly—on 11 quick pitches. The extra run set up a save situation and 15 minutes of "who's coming in?" discussions, ones that only ended when Charlie Manuel summoned Ryan Madson, not Brad Lidge, for the ninth. The decision to get his best reliever into the game was laudable, and perhaps foreseeable after the choice of Park to pitch the eighth. But then Madson fell behind the first three batters he faced, allowing a double to Jorge Posada, a single to Hideki Matsui, and going to 2-0 on Derek Jeter.

The Phillies are still a significant underdog to win this World Series, maybe as high as 7-1. If they do, though, there will be any number of heroes, any number of moments to remember. The 2-0 pitch to Jeter may end up forgotten, but it shouldn't be. Madson was a bad pitch away from turning what had been a blowout into a game the Phillies would be fortunate to win. If Jeter reaches, the Yankees have their 2-3-4 hitters up with no one out and the tying run on base. The Phillies had their best reliever in the game and their second-best one toweling off. There was nowhere else to go.