Phil Sheridan: Phils find their 'inner Manny'

It took just two swings last night for the Phillies to answer the riddle that stands between them and the World Series.

In a National League Championship Series when Manny (Ramirez) would surely be Manny, could the Phillies find their inner Manny in time?

Ramirez threw down the gauntlet in his first at-bat at Citizens Bank Park, crushing a Cole Hamels pitch off the top of the fence in dead center. Ramirez's 419-foot double gave the Los Angeles Dodgers a 1-0 lead and established that the Phillies' plans to handle Ramirez would go the way of most teams' plans to handle Ramirez.

For five innings, as 45,839 fans fanned the flame with waving towels, the Phillies tried to locate their inner Manny - the loose, carefree hitter who is oblivious to pressure.

In the sixth, Chase Utley found him. Two batters later, Pat Burrell found him. Within moments, two home runs landed in the seats and the Phillies had a 3-2 lead. They held on to win Game 1.

They are one-quarter of the way to the World Series.

Utley's two-run homer off Dodgers starter Derek Lowe felt like Shane Victorino's grand slam last week off Milwaukee ace CC Sabathia. It was a declaration that these Phillies are ready to seize the moment and return to the World Series for the first time since 1993.

The towering shot to right field also resembled Jimmy Rollins' leadoff homer in Game 4 Sunday in Milwaukee. It sent a message to the rest of the team that this would be a good night, after all.

"This is what we play for, the postseason," Hamels said. "You're finally there, you step on the field and the crowd is going crazy. I had the normal nerves everybody does."

And that's where the inner Manny came in.

Last year, these Phillies lost three playoff games, realizing only after elimination what the postseason was all about.

This year, it took a couple of lucky breaks, Victorino's slam, and a sobering loss in Game 3 against Milwaukee to get the Phillies swinging bats like it was carefree June or familiar August. The Game 4 victory raised the stakes and posed a fresh riddle.

Could the Phillies stay loose, keep hitting, and out-Manny Manny in his natural environment?

"I don't think that negative thought ever enters Manny's mind when he goes up to hit," Dodgers manager Joe Torre said. "And it's evidenced by . . . strike three, he walks back, puts his helmet down, you never hear him utter a sound - just pretty much waiting for the next time he has to do this thing."

As manager of the Yankees, Torre saw plenty of Manny in his Boston incarnation. Now Ramirez and Torre and Lowe - all giants of postseasons past - are reunited on a Dodgers team that, on paper, isn't quite as talented as these Phillies.

In trying to explain the phenomenon of Manny, Torre and Phillies manager Charlie Manuel sounded suspiciously New Age-like. There's no deep thinking in baseball, is there? Did Cobb and Ruth and Mantle and Mays cope with fear of failure? Or did they just go up to the plate and hit?

You assume the latter until you stop and think. Maybe the legends of yore just didn't talk about the stuff they were going through. They probably didn't sit around the clubhouse talking about their feelings very much in the '40s and '50s.

"Manny is tension-free in life," said Manuel, who worked on hitting with Ramirez during their years in the Cleveland organization. "To me, that's what makes him good and that's what makes him hit. He wants to be there. He's not scared. He's not scared to fail and he wants to be there in the moment."

That's New Age-like, right? But the Phillies hitters had very well-documented troubles getting themselves "in the moment" in their limited playoff experience. It is the same game they played as kids, and worked on in spring training, and played for endless spring and summer evenings.

"You've got to try to treat this like any other game," Utley said. "It's magnified, but it is the same game."

It isn't the game but the players who are different in October. They either rise to the occasion or fail in the clutch.

"I think in every sport it's the same," Torre said. "[Great players] crave the challenge, and they're not afraid to fail."

The Phillies got another championship-caliber pitching performance from Hamels. They have a powerful lineup fully capable of producing plenty of runs. The bullpen locked down another lead.

The only question was whether these Phillies could find their inner Manny. Last night, as Burrell's home run sailed over the real Manny, they did.