Sam Donnellon: Phillies mistakes are adding up to losses

SAN FRANCISCO - They won these games once. They took advantage of a little thing here, a little thing there, reversed imminent victories for the other team into series-altering losses.

Not anymore. They are that other team now. After last night's 6-5 loss to the San Francisco Giants put them in a 3-1 hole in the National League Championship Series, it's official.

The Phillies run themselves into outs. They muff doubleplay ground balls, double-clutch on throws to the plate, watch third strikes pass by with runners in scoring position.

They tie the game, get a runner on second in the eighth inning with no outs last night, have their speedy shortstop at the plate, and don't bunt the runner over.

Jimmy Rollins is picked off in the second inning with his team down by a run.

Carlos Ruiz is waved around by third-base coach Sam Perlozzo and thrown out at home for the second out of a four-run fifth inning. He would have scored the inning's fifth run.

Shane Victorino double-clutches on a throw home with two outs in the fifth. Andres Torres just beats the throw for the Giants' third run.

These are the plays of the other team, the plays that haunted the Los Angeles Dodgers over the last two winters, the plays that chilled the Tampa winter of 2008.

The Phillies? They were outpitched by the Yankees last year, that's all. Runs were scored, rallies attempted, plays made. They ran into good pitching, just as they have now.

But they didn't run themselves into the ground the way they have in this series. They didn't give opportunities away. Remember all that talk about playing the game the right way? Well, bunting over a runner with nobody out in the eighth inning of a tie game on the road is the right way.

"[Jimmy] Rollins usually pulls the ball to the right side of the diamond,'' Phillies manager Charlie Manuel explained afterward. " . . . Not only that, if he pulls the ball he has a chance to get a hit and drive the run in. And that's how you play the game."

No, it's not. Not on the road.

And especially not with your shortstop still seeking his stroke. Get the runner to third with one out. Make the pitcher wary of bouncing one, the way Giants reliever Santiago Casilla bounced one to score the Phillies' fourth run.

Before last night's game, Manuel repeated, with emphasis, that expecting the power from past postseasons was unrealistic based on how it performed over the 162-game regular season.

"You see the homers. I haven't been seeing those today," he said. "Really, our offense is down. And I'm not talking about one guy. Our offense basically is down. And reasons? I guess that happens sometimes."

Ask the Giants about that. Their offense has been nothing but down for most of this season. They have learned to play with a miser's eye, the Giants have, fouling off balls, poking pitches into the opposite corner the way Buster Posey did to set up last night's winning run.

"They're a good team and they made sure they kept fighting back," Rollins said. "They didn't fold over when we took the lead. 'We're up 2 to 1, so let's sit on it knowing that [Tim Lincecum's] on the mound [in Game 5].'

"They kept playing, fighting. That's why they're here."

The Phillies fought back twice last night, took a lead in that four-run fifth. By the time Rollins struck out to end that inning, they had scored four runs and erased a 2-0 deficit. It might have been even more had Perlozzo not waved Ruiz into an out at home on Victorino's RBI single with Chase Utley, Placido Polanco and Ryan Howard coming to the plate.

Then again, the way the first two had hit in this series, Perlozzo's aggression was understandable. Until that inning, the Phillies had not put together consecutive hits in the postseason since Roy Halladay singled in the second inning of his no-hitter.

Yes, that was this postseason.

It seems so long ago.

Halladay takes the mound tonight.

"This is when he's at his best, when everything is on the line," Rollins said. "I'm expecting Roy to go out there and be great. I bet you he's expecting to go out there and be great."

He better. Because his margin of error is as thin as Lincecum. It's thin not just because of what the other team has done. It's thin because Halladay's team is acting like the other team now, the team that fritters away its chances, hands the other guys some of theirs.

And spends the winter mulling the what-ifs.

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