CLIFF LEE had just given up a first-inning run. That's like Tim McGraw starting off "I like It, I Love It" with a belch. It's like a Charlie Manuel sentence without an "At the same time" to bridge conflicting ideas.
Yankees 1, Phillies 0. Here they go again. Crowd listlessly flapping its rally towels, 46,000 flags about to fly at half-staff.
So, with Jimmy Rollins waiting for A.J. Burnett to finish his warm-up tosses, before a Phillies batter had faced a pitch, the robust Money Pit sound system blared to life with the stirring refrain of the unofficial South Philly National Anthem:
The Theme from "Rocky" filled the jammed yard with its "Gonna Fly Now" promise.
Mike Lupica, the ubiquitous New York Daily News sports columnist, turned to a lineup of Philly writers and chirped, "I think you guys have heard that one before."
"Yeah," I replied, "just not in the first flippin' inning."
Desperate times require desperate measures . . .
By the time the first inning was over, the sound system could have belted out Bobby McFerrin's "Don't Worry, Be Happy."
Cause every little ting gonna be all right.
Right?
In a dizzying six-pitch sequence, Rollins drilled a 1-2 single to center. Squaring to bunt, Shane Victorino took a 94 mph fastball off his right hand. And Chase Utley joined street person Lenny Dykstra as the only Phils batsman to hit four homers in a World Series with a booming three-run shot into the porch in right. In the seventh inning, the second baseman gave Lee a 7-2 lead that made Dykstra a mansionless former recordholder. His titanic shot to right, No. 5, tied Reggie Jackson for the all-time single Series record. And he became just the second hitter in Fall Classic annals to have two multihomer games.
The baseball gods giveth and they taketh away . . .
On the night No. 3 hitter Utley made history, No. 4 Ryan Howard tied Willie Wilson's record of 12 strikeouts - set in 1980 against the Phillies - with two more in a tense, backsliding 8-6 victory that conjured up visions of epic Phillies meltdowns of the past. But Ryan Madson, who followed Chan Ho Park's shaky eighth, pitched a Perils-of-Pauline ninth that ended with Mark Teixeira representing the tying run. Madson struck out the slugging first baseman with a changeup and this entertaining circus has loaded the wagons and headed up the Jersey Turnpike for another round of drama.
Given a 3-1 lead, the nasty Cliff Lee showed up for work in the second inning, dealing with the efficiency and speed of a Toyota assembly plant worker, a robotic lefthander back in control of his stuff and the Phillies destiny. He pulled his teammates back from the edge, pitch-by-pitch, inning-by-inning. Then he ran out of gas and the angst meter pegged at 100.
"I wanted to bring Madson in," Manuel said. "I wanted to give [Brad] Lidge a break tonight."
Charlie, you gave a helluva lot of people a break, as well. Trust me.
And tomorrow it will be Pedro Martinez, back with his "Daddys" in the House That Ruthless Built, the Dream of a Phils repeat still sustainable. Only five teams had come back from down 3-1 in a best-of-seven Series. Coming back from down 3-2 presents decidedly better odds. The 3-2 alignment has presented itself 60 times. Three has prevailed 40 times. But two has come back to win on 20 occasions. Dick Jerardi, the Babe Ruth of Breeders' Cup handicapping, will ride those odds every time.
And here's the latest chapter of the weather drama that has been playing in the back channels the entire Phillies postseason - a snowout in Denver, sizzling heat in LA, a near-miss by a gully-washer Saturday night here. Now . . . if the Phillies can pull out Game 6 tomorrow night, they might run into the November risk MLB has taken on by extending the postseason this far past the Autumnal Equinox: the dreaded Nor'easter. And one appears to be brewing for Thursday and Thursday night. Even if the snow predicted for New England fails to make it as far south as the Bronx, Fox and Friends could be looking at driving rain in Denver cold. Stay tuned as this forecast evolves.
Charlie wouldn't mind that a little bit. He reminded the media that Friday would be Lee's throwing day, hinting his ace could be available for bullpen work in a Game 7. "We'll play Wednesday and maybe it will rain the next day," Manuel said.
The consequence, of course, is that a possible postponement could give Manuel yet another rabbit-out-of-the-hat opportunity to bring back Lee on 3 days rest with the whole winter to rest. And his opponent likely would be CC Sabathia working on his full rest.
Meanwhile, on the night Rocky Balboa scored the earliest knockout of his career, a first inning TKO, it would have been dramatically correct for the big ballpark jukebox to blare forth another Bob Marley anthem after Madson put away Teixeira:
"Redemption Song."
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http://go.philly.com/conlin.
