Rich Hofmann: Phillies flying home in pilot's seat for Game 6

SAN FRANCISCO - The 2010 Phillies are the team that drove expectations more than any team in franchise history. It is a big statement, but true. They are the team that managed to convince the two most hard-to-convince cities, Philadelphia and Las Vegas, that they were going to win the World Series. A week ago, the world was sure that a championship was nigh. As the great man sings: High hopes, indeed.

This morning, after a detour to the edge of despair, those hopes remain alive. This morning, in fact, it is possible for the Phillies to look themselves in the mirror and see a team with a real chance - not just a puncher's chance, but a real and viable chance - to get back to the World Series again.

That is what happens when you win Game 5 of the National League Championship Series, 4-2, over the Giants. For a while, after the Game 4 horror show, it looked as if the whole thing would end up lying in a tumbled, broken mass on the ground. For a while, it seemed that all that remained was the arrival of the coroner, and the final autopsy.

Instead, the Phillies flew home with the same foundation of knowledge, and hope, that they have carried with them for months. Their mantra, after being interrupted by a few screams and screeches over three games at AT & T Park, is intact again and in rhythm.

It goes like this:

Halladay.

Oswalt.

Hamels.

Period.

They are going home with two games to play. They have Roy Oswalt pitching in Game 6 in a ballpark where he never seems to lose. They have Cole Hamels pitching in Game 7 in an attempt to cap his season of fantastic redemption. They are going home, where the rally towels rule and where the confines are not so confining.

They are still the bearers of a grim burden, but for the first time in this series, the Phillies have likely managed to make the giddy Giants stop for a second and realize where they are, and what is at stake, and that they not only have a chance to win, but to lose.

Molded and calloused by previous Octobers, these Phillies know two things: that their path is still longer, yes, but that they also possess the road map.

"We did exactly what we had to do: We won the game," Phillies manager Charlie Manuel said. "Going back home, we have Oswalt going the first game and Hamels the second and . . . we're going to have to like it. I do like it."

Then, Manuel said, "I figure we definitely kind of changed things around a little bit."

The notion hangs there - of change, in perception and maybe in pressure, as the whole careening caravan heads East.

The night began with Roy Halladay on the mound and the hopes of the season in his hand. The debate about 3 days' rest was over. The way Halladay pitched last night, it was with earnest, exhausting fortitude. He did not have his best stuff and still managed to allow only two runs in six innings. Only after the game did we learn that Halladay suffered a mild groin pull in the second inning and survived the rest of the way on guts and guile.

It was not the masterpiece for which he was hired, but it was better in its own way, a professional endurance test - and he left the game with a 3-2 lead after throwing 108 pitches. As closer Brad Lidge said in unvarnished admiration, "It was huge for him to go six. That's why it was such an impressive outing."

So, how did they win it last night? With a lusty four hits in the first eight innings, that's how - but only because three of them were bunched in the third inning, along with a hit batter, an error and a successful sacrifice bunt by Halladay that was scored a very routine 2-5-4. The Phils scored three runs there, added an insurance run on a Jayson Werth homer in the ninth, and watched their bullpen be as good and economical in Game 5 as it was weak and untidy in Game 4.

And now, we all are left to wonder if the Phillies' reserve of October experience will become more and more meaningful as the series goes deeper and deeper.

"The atmosphere is lifted a little bit but we know what we're up against," centerfielder Shane Victorino said. "We're not where we want to be."

The burden remains on the Phillies, and that remains plain. But the pressure has shifted now, at least subtly. That seems just as obvious.

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hofmanr@phillynews.com,

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