LOS ANGELES - That was a rally towel Tommy Lasorda was swirling above his head in the fifth inning at Dodger Stadium.
It might as well have been a white flag.
The Dodgers were that bad. Now an anxious off-season awaits as they try to sign free-agent Manny Ramirez, who came out of the dugout long after the game and waved to cheering fans. They just hope it wasn't goodbye.
Game 5 of the National League Championship Series fell apart quickly for the Dodgers. Starting pitcher Chad Billingsley gave up a leadoff home run to the Phillies' Jimmy Rollins to start the game and didn't make it out of the third inning.
Shortstop Rafael Furcal committed three errors in the fifth - two of them on the same play - and the Phillies scored two unearned runs as the Dodgers threw the ball all over the field.
The 5-1 loss that put the Phillies in the World Series was a Dodgers disaster.
The score was 5-0 in the fifth with two Dodgers on base and nobody out when Lasorda - their legendary former manager - stood and swirled a towel emblazoned with the Dodgers' logo.
Blake DeWitt promptly grounded into a double play, and pinch-hitter Jeff Kent, hitless in his first seven postseason at-bats after returning from knee surgery, struck out weakly. Two innings later, Kent struck out with two runners on again.
The only bright spot for the Dodgers was Ramirez's sixth-inning home run - and even that served just to remind some fans of his impending free agency.
The former Red Sox star lit up the clubhouse and the upper decks after arriving at the trading deadline, hitting 21 homers in a Dodgers uniform, including four in the playoffs.
The Dodgers face tremendous fan pressure to sign him, but with that comes the risk involved with a 36-year-old slugger who might want four or five years at $20 million a year.
"I just want to thank all my fans here in L.A. I'm just happy that I came," Ramirez said after the game, adding he would "see what happens" in the off-season.
It isn't just the money or his age, it is all the baggage that goes along with Manny's bat - the erratic behavior that became enough for the Red Sox to get rid of him and pay his remaining salary to do it.
"Manny had a great run with this club. We'll sit down and talk," Dodgers owner Frank McCourt said. "What you have to realize is it takes two to tango. It's more up to Manny."
Furcal is also a free agent, and his outing will not soon be forgotten.
With runners on first and second in the fifth, he gloved a ball off the bat of Pat Burrell, only to drop it. Furcal retrieved it, only to commit another error on the throw home. He added a third error later in the inning on a throw to first that allowed Ryan Howard to score from third.
"Nobody wants to make a mistake," Furcal said. "It's tough."
