DAVID SWANSON / Staff photographer
Shane Victorino gets to third base safely on Chase Utley single in the third.
Paul Hagen: Early finish gives Phils a breather
DENVER - Believe it or not, there just might have been an interest group more unhappy to see the Phillies eliminate Colorado last night than the Rockies and their fans.
That would be your Los Angeles Dodgers.
The best possible scenario for the Phillies' next opponent would have been for this National League Division Series to go down to the wire. For both teams left standing to have to expend their top two starters and empty out their bullpens. For the survivor to show up tattered and tired for Game 1 of the National League Championship Series on Thursday night at Dodger Stadium.
Instead, the Phillies staged a frantic rally for a wild, crazy, thoroughly entertaining, had-to-see-it-to-believe-it, 5-4 win at Coors Field that vaulted them into the next round and knocked the Rockies out of the playoffs.
The Dodgers swept the Cardinals. They've had a chance to rest and regroup and rework their rotation.
If the Phillies had lost last night - and they were trailing, 4-2, going into the ninth - they would have had to play a winner-take-all game at Citizens Bank Park tonight. They would have had to use Cole Hamels a day after Cliff Lee started. They would have had to turn right around and fly back to the opposite coast for a workout tomorrow. They most likely would have been weary and jet-lagged.
"It's always important to finish as soon as you can," pitching coach Rich Dubee said, dripping with champagne. "This will give us the opportunity to do what we want to do. It would have been difficult [to play again today], but that's what the postseason is all about."
He conceded, however, that having the extra day of rest is important.
"This is a lot better," he said. "This is what happened last year with Cole. We wrapped up all those series early. When it winds up like that, you've got things the way you want them."
Pitching plans
The Phillies haven't announced their NLCS rotation, but every indication is that Hamels will get the Game 1 start.
Joe Blanton, J.A. Happ and Pedro Martinez would all be options for Game 2 and then Cliff Lee could come back with an extra day of rest in Game 3.
The Dodgers also have been mum, but the extra time off means that manager Joe Torre can use any of his starters. The first three probably will be Clayton Kershaw and former Phillies Randy Wolf and Vicente Padilla, although not necessarily in that order.
The blew route
There already has been a lot of conversation during the postseason about possible missed calls by umpires. Two controversies involving judgment calls on the same play during the Phillies' winning rally in the ninth inning of Game 3 Sunday night only intensified the debate.
To recap: Jimmy Rollins was on second base with one out of a tie game. Chase Utley hit a slow roller in front of the plate and was called safe at first. Rollins moved to third on the play and scored the decisive run on Ryan Howard's sacrifice fly.
The trouble was that replays showed - and home plate umpire Jerry Meals later acknowledged - that the ball should have been called foul, since it bounced up and struck Utley before rolling into fair territory. And the Rockies continue to believe that the throw from closer Huston Street beat Utley and that first baseman Todd Helton's foot maintained contact with the bag, even though first-base umpire Ron Kulpa saw it differently.
"That's not why we lost," Rockies manager Jim Tracy said before last night's 5-4 elimination loss at Coors Field. "I think we need to move on. I think that was yesterday. We can't do a damn thing about it. There are other things we can do better than belabor the point about umpiring and this, that and whatever."
