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        When we look back on World Series, it is often about singular names. This guy pitched well in his starts, that guy had a couple big home runs, a role player stepped up big. Baseball is a game of individual pursuits played within a team concept, but there are certain integral jobs that almost by definition go unnoticed.
         Middle relief won the Yankees those four championships in the late 1990s and early 2000s. More than Derek Jeter, more than Mariano Rivera, or Paul O’Neill or Bernie Williams, the long forgotten arms of players such as Mike Stanton, Jeff Nelson and Rafael Mendoza were often the difference.  ``It always seems,’’ former Phillies middle relief man Larry Andersen said before this World Series began, ``that the weakest link for any team at this time of the year is the bench and their middle relief.’’
        As if a prophet, Andersen’s words became deeds in Game 1 of the World Series at Yankee Stadium. Cliff Lee and C.C. Sabathia pitched like the postseason misers they were advertised to be. Lee was the more masterful of the two, dumbfounding the Major League’s best hitting lineup with pinpoint control, a live fastball, and an array of offspeed pitches that seemed to vary from inning to inning. He struck out 10, including the side in the fourth inning, churning through the heart of the order the first two times he faced it.
         Sabathia made it through seven innings, leaving with his team down 2-0. Phil Hughes began the eighth inning by walking two batters. Damaso Marte, the Yankees tough lefty, got Chase Utley and Ryan Howard to strike out, but David Robertson, the Yankees young righthander, walked Jayson Werth and surrendered a two-run single to Raul Ibanez.
         The Phillies scored two more runs against New York’s bullpen, which was supposed to be one of their advantages coming into this series. It’s dangerous though to go by regular-season numbers this time of the year, as Brad Lidge can tell you. With the exception of closer Mariano Rivera, the Yankees have a lot of young arms bridging their starters to the close, which is why Rivera had to be used for six outs in the Yankees Game 6 ALCS clincher.
In Game 5 Hughes, a Yankee untouchable at one point in his career, allowed three of the four batters he faced to reach base.
        ``It was his first World Series game,’’ Yankees pitching coach Dave Eiland said after Game 1.``Hopefully he got the jitters out. We're certainly not going to throw in the towel on him."
         And maybe he rights himself. Still, it’s been an interesting back story throughout the Phillies postseason. The Rockies were supposed to have the better bullpen, but they were young and wilted under the heat of this time of the year. The Dodgers were supposed to have three guys who can close, yet they lost two games by surrendering late-inning runs. They too, were young.
        The Phillies bullpen, crippled by an amazing array of injuries during the season, has become healthy just in time for the postseason. Most of them, too, were around for last year’s run.
        `` The way our bullpen came on at the end of the season and in the playoffs, I have no problem with that part,’’ Andersen said.
           At the least, it bears watching.
 

NEW YORK - The grind to his game is most emphatically demonstrated when it is not there.

No one knows the toll the rest of this World Series will take on Chase Utley and his undisclosed hurts. Only that rest has been a great friend to him this time of the year.

A nine-pitch at-bat in the third. A home run. An 0-2 count in the sixth. Another home run, this one traveling about 20 rows into the rightfield bleachers. C.C. Sabathia had not allowed a home run to a lefthanded batter all season at Yankee Stadium until last night. No lefthanded batter but Babe Ruth had ever hit two home runs against a lefthander in the Yankees home park.

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LOS ANGELES -- Someone really needs to talk to Cole Hamels, and soon.
``I will talk to him about it, yes,’’ said Phillies manager Charlie Manuel said before yesterday’s Game 2.
Manuel said that he didn’t see Hamels’ latest demonstrative on-field act-up in Thursday night’s game 1 – which is what Hamels said he hoped was going to happen everywhere.
``I walked back to the duout and said, `Oops, I hope they didn’t see that,’’ the pitcher told Leslie Gudel of Comcast Sportsnet.
We did. After Chase Utley fired a potential inning-ending double-play relay throw into the stands during the Dodgers three-run fifth inning, Hamels raised his hands in disgust – then coughed up a two-run home run to Manny Ramirez.
After Ryan Howard threw away a pickoff throw in his Game 2 loss to Colorado, Hamels snapped the ball thrown back to him from Jimmy Rollins in disgust. Neither Utley or Howard are Gold Glovers, but they have been known to win a few games here and there with their bats.
Hamels was apologetic yesterday – sort of, ``You can’t show up a teammate and I did,’’ he told Gudel.
But he also said this to her: ``Imagine you’re in Philly. What would the fans do? I did exactly what a fan does.’’
Here’s a big difference: YOU ARE NOT A FAN!
You are the reigning MVP of the World Series, a guy who is paid millions to go play ballgames, not someone who pays to watch them. You used to be considered an ace.
Before his Game 1 start, Hamels spoke of 2009 as being ``a definite learning season for me, and I’m definitely going to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Because that’s just not the type of person I want to be to my teammates and especially to the organization and the fans.’’
Then he goes out and does this stuff. Twice in two playoff games.
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Overheard during a meeting of stadium security last night. ``They hit that second three-run homer, and the fights started 10 seconds later.’’
Dodger Stadium has been the site of some serious fan violence this season, including a fatal stabbing in the parking lot after their home opener in April.
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DENVER – The Phillies had bases loaded in the third with one out and could not score.

The Rockies walked them loaded again with one out in the seventh and again the Phillies could not score.

Raul Ibanez dropped a fly ball that put Seth Smith on second with one out in the seventh.

There is this understandable review of Brad Lidge’s Game 3 save as more luck than design.
I saw it differently.
Lidge pitched to the situation, maybe as well as he has done all season, maybe better. He got struggling Brad Hawpe on two pitches. He never gave in to the red-hot Carlo Gonzalez, finally walking him after the Rockies leadoff hitter – who has eight hits in 13 at-bats so far -- just got some timber on a couple of nasty sliders.
He surprised Jason Giambi with a 1-1 cutter, a pitch he said he had kept in his back pocket all year, and induced a pop-up to third. Two outs. Aware of his numbers against lefthanded Todd Helton (.364 lifetime) and his numbers against the ensuing batter, Troy Tulowitzki (0-for-3 two strikeouts), he tried to bait Helton into bad swings before walking him on five pitches.
He then jammed Tulowitzki with a 1-0 fastball, inducing a soft fly to left to end the game.
``When I've had trouble, I've thrown just tons of sliders over and over and over,’’ said Lidge. ``And the hitters start getting onto that. We tried to mix it up a little bit tonight. We ended up getting him out with a fastball in and hopefully I'll have a chance to do something else tomorrow. But I think I'm best when I'm not too predictable out there.’’
That’s pitching. That’s what Lidge meant all September when he said things could and would change for him in October. It doesn’t mean he will succeed today or tomorrow, if necessary. It just means that what you get from him is a guy who has been under this pressure before, a guy who will go out there with a plan.
The Rockies were justifiably proud of their bullpen entering this series. It entered last night’s game having surrendered just one run in seven innings. But the Phillies nubbed out two against that pen over the last three innings last night. Pitching out of the stretch, baserunners on: That’s what relief pitching is this time of year, more than numbers.
Lidge has failed an incredible number of times this year. Nine of his 11 blown saves were protecting a one-run lead. He kept asking for the ball, for another chance. Credit him for asking. And credit Charlie Manuel for never abandoning him, the way almost every other manager would have if Lidge had floundered all season long like he did for the Phillies.
``Faith will be rewarded,’’ Bruce Springsteen croons in ``Land of Hope and Dreams.’’For this night at least, it truly was.
-30
 

Ryan Howard and Yorvit Torrealba have at least one thing in common.

Neither can get the ball down to second in time, or with reasonable accuracy.

The Phillies took advantage of Torrealba’s miserable steal numbers in Game 1, swiping three of four bags against the Colorado catcher. In a bit of irony, Howard was the only one thrown out. And that includes a successful steal by Phillies pitcher Cliff Lee.

One missed element to Wednesday’s one-sided Phillies victory: The umpires had a really bad day.

With the game scoreless in the second, third base umpire Ron Kulpa called Yorvit Torrealba out at third as he tried to advance on a fly-out to rightfield. Replays showed Torrealba well ahead of Jayson Werth’s throw.

The Phillies got another break when Cliff Lee appeared to be picked off at second. Jerry Meals either did not see Troy Tulowitzki brush Lee’s front leg as he came back to the bag standing, or ruled he did not make contact. That one was closer.

The Phillies vowed that once the postseason came, they would change into the smart, patient, pitch-absorbing offense that won it all in 2008.

Beginning with the fifth inning of today’s 5-1 victory, they were.

Jayson Werth, whose name in some language must translate into ``quality at-bat’’ led off with an eight-pitch walk.