Defense betrays Phillies in Game 2

LOS ANGELES – If the Phillies end up losing this National League Championship Series, they will look back at the eighth inning of yesterday's Game 2 as the moment everything changed.

The normally sure-handed Phils had trouble fielding the ball and throwing it (in the field and on the pitcher's mound) as they let a one-run lead get away in the inning.

These miscues conspired to scuttle a brilliant pitching performance by Pedro Martinez and left the Phils with a 2-1 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers. The series heads to Philadelphia for Game 3 tomorrow night tied at a game apiece.

A look at some of the key moments in yesterday's game:

Martinez pitched seven shutout innings and handed a 1-0 lead to Chan Ho Park in the bottom of the eighth, where anything and everything went wrong.

Strategic positioning: "The book" says that corner infielders should guard the line to prevent doubles late in a close game. Of course, sometimes the strategy backfires and allows a playable ball to slip by for a hit.

Third baseman Pedro Feliz was shaded a couple steps toward the line when Casey Blake led off the frame. Blake hit a bounding ball several feet to Feliz's left. The ball hit off Feliz's glove and went for the hit that started the rally.

Should Feliz have made the play? Put it this way: He's a tremendous fielder and has made it before.

"I tried my best and couldn't get it," Feliz said.

Manager Charlie Manuel absolved Feliz of any blame, and third base coach Sam Perlozzo, who oversees infield play, said shading the line in that situation was the right thing to do.

The perfect bunt: After Blake's hit, Ronnie Belliard pushed a bunt between Park and charging first baseman Ryan Howard. The bunt came off the bat hard. If it had been a few feet toward the mound, Park might have been able to start a double play. Instead, the ball eluded him and Howard, putting two men on base with no outs.

The error: The Phils were second in the NL in fielding percentage (.987) and made the second fewest errors (76) in the league. But their middle-infield defense betrayed them for the third straight game when second baseman Chase Utley made a costly throwing error on a potential double-play ball.

With runners on first and second, Russell Martin hit a grounder to Feliz, who threw to Utley, who misfired to first for the second time in as many days. The error allowed pinch-runner Juan Pierre to score the tying run.

"I don't think [Utley] got a good grip on the ball," Howard said.

"I had a good grip," Utley said. "I just didn't make a good throw."

The walks: After Utley's error, pinch-hitter Jim Thome singled off lefty Scott Eyre. Ryan Madson came in and walked Rafael Furcal to load the bases. With the game still tied and one out, Madson struck out dangerous Matt Kemp with a change-up. Manuel then brought in lefty J.A. Happ to face lefthanded hitting Andre Ethier, who hit just .194 against lefties during the season. Happ walked Ethier on a full-count fastball, giving the Dodgers the lead.

Pitching for first time since Sept. 30, Martinez was brilliant. He mixed fastballs, change-ups and breaking balls and held the Dodgers to two hits over seven innings.

"Those guys are smart hitters; you have to mix it up on them," he said.

It was like old times watching the 37-year-old Martinez set up hitters and get them with his dancing change-up. In the fifth inning, he went at Blake with all off-speed stuff and struck him out with a change-up. He then started Belliard with three straight fastballs before striking him out with a change-up. Martinez handled Manny Ramirez all day. In the seventh, he went slider, slider, fastball, change-up to whiff Ramirez.

Martinez got away with two mistakes, a hanging 2-0 change-up that Furcal hit to Utley in the third, and his last pitch, a down-the-middle fastball that James Loney lined to deep center. Loney had just 13 homers during the season. A more powerful hitter might have deposited the pitch over the wall.

Vicente Padilla pitched brilliantly for the Dodgers, allowing just one run over 71/3 innings. He cruised through the first three, got the first out in the fourth, then seemed to get a little comfortable. He got sloppy with a 1-1 curveball, and Howard lofted it over the wall in left-center for the 1-0 lead that was almost good enough for the Phils.

Carlos Ruiz seemed to get better and better as the season went on. He hit .333 with 15 extra-base hits over the final 33 games. He hit a huge three-run homer in Game 1 of the NLCS and entered yesterday 6 for 16 (.375) with six RBIs in the first five games of this postseason.

Ruiz's contributions extend behind the plate, where pitchers have great trust in him.

Yesterday, Ruiz showed another dimension of his defense when he threw out Kemp (34 regular-season steals) trying to steal second in the fourth. The Phils were up, 1-0, at the time, and the Dodgers were trying to get a runner in scoring position for Ethier. Kemp actually picked a good pitch to run on, a 1-1 slider that registered just 81 m.p.h. Ruiz made a quick transfer from mitt to throwing hand and fired a strike to Jimmy Rollins to get Kemp.

Ruiz also stole a base, becoming the first Phils catcher to steal one and throw out a runner in the same postseason game. Dodgers catcher Martin pulled off the feat against the Phils in Game 3 last year.