Live Blog: 2009 NLCS, Game Two

2:45 PM:  It’s about an hour and a half before Game Two gets underway.  The Phils will look to keep the magic going that’s helped them to 3 straight heart-pounding wins in this post-season, while the Dodgers will look to bounce back from their first loss of the 2009 playoffs.  The main story line for this game has to be the down-right fascinating pitching matchup of Pedro Martinez vs. Vicente Padilla.  It’s been a long, strange trip for both of these pitchers to end up pitching in this game today, and they’re both pitching against the team where they first established themselves as major-league pitchers.

Three years ago, or three months ago, or three weeks  ago, no one would have predicted that Padilla would be starting the second game of a League Championship Series.  He showed plenty of flashes of brilliance throughout his career (including a 2-year stretch with the Phillies where his combined ERA was around 3.45, with 28 wins), but he was dogged by rumors of alcoholism and immaturity, was tagged as the quintessential head-hunter, and, earlier this year, even ended up being the first professional athlete in the country diagnosed with swine flu.  He’s been hot lately, and finds himself with a chance to redeem a career that’s appeared doomed many a time.

For Pedro, it’s been a much different, but no less circuitous route to this game.  Pedro posted a 2.61 ERA with the Dodgers in 1993, mostly as a reliever, before being traded to the Expos for Delino DeShields.  The rest, of course, is history, as Pedro went on to win 3 Cy Young Awards and strike out over 3,000 hitters in a Hall-of-Fame career.  But he’s 37 now, and nowhere near the dominant, power pitcher he once was.  He didn’t appear in a game until August, and now hasn’t pitched in about two weeks, but the defending champs hand him the ball today in the NLCS.  We can’t be sure what Pedro or Padilla will bring to the table today but, like their careers in general, we can expect it to be interesting.  Let’s go Phils!

4:13 pm:  Padilla looked pretty good in that first inning.  Only a single by Utley for the Phils.  You can see part of the reason that the Dodgers don’t want Padilla pitching at the Bank in this series: all three outs were on fly balls.

4:15 PM:  With a righty pitcher for the Phils, the Dodgers revert back to their normal line-up, with Kemp 2nd and Ethier 3rd.  As we’ve discussed, this makes it harder to mix and match against these guys with the bullpen late in the game.

4:20 PM:  Pedro also looks good in a 1-2-3 1st inning, though he did fall behind all three hitters, which is a little bit of cause for concern.

4:28 PM:  So, Padilla looks great through 2 innings.  BUT, so did Kershaw last night, as did Ubaldo Jimenez, Aaron Cook, and Jason Hammel for the Rockies, so this doesn’t mean a whole lot.  Let’s see what Padilla can do in the second and third times through the line-up.

4:42PM:  It’s pretty interesting that Padilla, Randy Wolf, and Jim Thome are on this Dodgers roster.  Back in 2003, the Phillies were really in the early stages of an ascent that culminated in the championship last year, and has obviously kept going into 2009.  Chase Utley debuted that year, hitting .239 in 130 AB’s, and Rollins was in his 3rd season.  Thome was the team’s best hitter, with 47 homers that year, and Wolf and Padilla were key cogs in the rotation just coming into their primes.  At that point, if we dared to imagine a Phillies championship, those three guys played a key role.  Now here we are, 6 years later, the Phillies have won that elusive title, and those three guys all stand in the way of another.  And the guy that managed that ’03 team? Larry Bowa, the Dodgers 3rd-base coach.  Kinda weird.

4:59 PM:  It’s been an odd three innings for Pedro.  On the one hand, he’s given up no runs and one hit, with the one hit being a bloop single.  So it seems like he’s pitching great.  On the other hand, not counting the at-bat against Padilla, he’s fallen behind 7 of the 9 batters he’s faced, and he hasn’t struck out anyone.  So he definitely doesn’t have his A game.  But, he still has enough movement on his pitches that he’s not letting the Dodgers get good wood on the ball, and hopefully he can keep that up.

5:03 PM:  It was a matter of time before Howard hit one out!  As we all know, when he’s hitting them out to right field, that means he’s seeing the ball well, and it’s BAD news for opposing pitchers.

5:22 PM:  Pedro’s thrown just 48 pitches through 4 innings, which is nice.  They probably don’t want him to throw more than about 95 pitches, so keeping the pitch count down is pretty big.  On a different note, I think it’s time for Pedro to do away with the jheri curls.  I don’t know what they do in the Dominican, but it isn’t 1988, so they really aren’t working.

5:26 PM:  Halfway through the game in an hour and twenty minutes.  We’ve been getting used to four hour games, so this has been REALLY quick.

5:37 PM:  Bry talked a lot last night about winning the first 6 innings.  They have a 1-0 lead as the 6th gets underway, but that’s not a comfortable lead, obviously.  With the top of the order coming up for their third hack at Padilla, it would be nice to see a run or two on the board in this inning.

5:53 PM:  It’s amazing how many weak fly balls Pedro has induced in this game.  So, we’re through 6 innings, and the Phils are clinging to that one-run lead still.  Strap in for some stressful innings!

6:03 PM:  Well, I’ve seen Padilla pitch some games like this in years past, but it’s still surprising to see him doing this in such a big spot against such a tough line-up.  The Phils had Happ up in the pen, but I have to think that was just in case Pedro’s spot in the order came up.  He’s got the heart of the Dodger line-up coming up here in the 7th, and I think it’s his inning all the way through, unless there’s some serious trouble.

6:13 PM:  Well, Pedro is due up 3rd in the 8th inning, but I think you leave him in.  He’s been in control all game, he just went through the 3-4-5 hitters in the Dodger line-up with no problem, he’s only at 87 pitches, and, um, I’ve seen our bullpen.  I’d like to see him stay in there, but considering he hasn’t thrown in so long, Charlie might think 87 pitches is enough.

6:14 PM:  OK, so right after I write that, I see Pedro getting hugs in the dug-out.  So I guess he’s done.  It will be Chan Ho Park in the 8th, and Mr. Lidge in the 9th, I suppose.

6:39 PM:  I’m dumbfounded.  How does Chase throw the ball away two days in a row like that?!  I don’t get it.

6:45 PM:  Hate to say it, but it’s really looking like leaving Pedro in there may have been the right move.  Now we’ve gone Park to Eyre to Madson, and the inning’s far from over.

6:46 PM:  Just when I thought this inning couldn’t get worse, Kobe Bryant makes an appearance.  They really though he’d be a Phillies fan?  The guy’s never been loyal to anything or anyone in his life, what does he care about the Phillies? Actually, he probably just switched from a Phillies hat to a Dodgers hat when they tied the game.

6:54 PM:  Huge strike-out by Madson after a GREAT play by Jayson Werth, intentionally letting a foul ball drop that would have scored the go-ahead run if he caught it.  Going to Happ here for Ethier is definitely the right move.

7:01 PM:  Uggghhh. There’s nothing worse than a bases loaded walk, and there’s not many spots that are worse to have one than right there.

7:04 PM:  Top of the order coming in the 9th.  Can this team pull off another ridiculous win???

7:17 PM:  Tough to lose a game when you get such a great outing from your starter.  This may be described as “another game blown by the bullpen”, and that’s how the TBS announcers are describing it right now.  But this loss isn’t on the bullpen.  It’s on the offense, for only putting up one run, and it’s on the defense for that key error by Utley.  I’m not blaming the offense, because these games happen, but blaming the bullpen for giving up two runs in an inning with a key error doesn’t tell nearly the whole story.  In the end, we still have home-field advantage and this loss isn’t a devastating one.