Bastardo shows his reliability in first playoff appearance

DENVER - Suddenly, the Phillies have an asset, one with a titillating future.

Charlie Manuel handed the baseball to lefthanded rookie Antonio Bastardo and told him, "Your best pitch is the fastball."

He left the mound and told catcher Carlos Ruiz, "Make him throw the fastball."

The bases were loaded with Rockies. The Phillies trailed by two runs in the eighth inning with two out. It was Game 2 of the National League Division Series, on Thursday. The Rockies could blow the game open with a blast, and they had called on lefty pinch-hitter Jason Giambi to deliver it, against reliever Brett Myers, who had created this pretty mess, against whom Giambi had known only success.

The only lefty Manuel had to use was Bastardo, 24, a rookie with six major league games to his credit, just once in relief, in a meaningless game. That meaningless game was his only big-league appearance since he began a 3-month stint on the disabled list with a shoulder strain June 29.

Bastardo's even being on the playoff roster was a surprise, especially to Bastardo. With J.C. Romero still fighting his forearm issues, the Phillies needed lefty bullpen arms against the lefty-heavy Rockies lineup.

So, there Bastardo was. Manuel figured, if he had him, he would use him.

Bastardo fired the first pitch, a fastball, 94 mph, hip-high. Giambi fouled it off. Bastardo threw another, low. Then . . . slider, for a strike; slider, for Strike 3.

"When he threw the guy two sliders in a row, and got 'em over, I 'bout flipped over. Really. That shows you what kind of poise he has," Manuel said, excited. "Really. That shows you what kind of poise he has."

After Thursday's performance, we'll get to see that poise again. And again.

Bastardo has pitched his way into being the Phillies' lefty situational pitcher. Manuel had used Scott Eyre in the seventh to replace injured J.A. Happ. Myers followed Eyre to start the eighth.

Had Myers been better, Bastardo would not have had his moment. Giambi was the sixth batter of the inning. Before the inning began, Manuel knew that, if it came to a Myers/Giambi showdown, Manuel was going with Bastardo.

Bastardo knew this, too. He knew, too, the gravity of facing Giambi. After all, Giambi once went to five straight All-Star Games and was the American League MVP in 2000, long before the Phillies signed Bastardo in the Dominican Republic in 2005. Giambi was a star.

"I knew who he was," Bastardo said yesterday through an interpreter. "It didn't matter."

What mattered was that Manuel had put him on the roster, and had put him in this big spot.

"I wanted to show I belong here," Bastardo said. "This is my moment to show why I'm here, playing at this time, in my career."

One major reason why he was there at that time is that, while he recovered from his shoulder problem, Bastardo took to heart the lessons learned in his five fill-in starts when he replaced Myers in June.

Bastardo was overpowering in his debut in San Diego, humming fastballs in the mid-90s. He was good, too, his next time out, in Los Angeles.

He then lost the next three games. A hot fastball was not enough. He was told to dial down the fastball, rely more on his reconstructed slider, slip in a changeup.

"The first game he pitched, in San Diego, he was so wound up, he couldn't get his breaking ball or his changeup going," Manuel recalled.

As he healed, Bastardo ruminated over this.

"Being injured, having the time off, helped me reflect on the adjustment I needed to make," Bastardo said. "I worked on the slider and changeup. Now, I'm able to throw it where I want it."

If anyone understands the effectiveness of harnessed power and well-located sliders, it is Brad Lidge, the Phillies' deposed closer, whose career has been made on those two pitches.

That, and lots of moxie. You can't teach moxie, Lidge said, and that's what Bastardo showed Thursday.

"I was impressed with that," Lidge said. "To come into the game as a dominant lefty specialist like that, and punch out Giambi, who is a very veteran hitter - I was definitely impressed. A lot of young guys come out of the 'pen, they go out there and they feel around a little bit, maybe walk a guy."

Bastardo was anything but timid.

"It's going to help us a lot, to be honest. It helps us take the news of J.C. a little better," Lidge said. "They did a smart thing. They took him. They thought he would be confident enough, and his stuff would be good enough, to get lefties out."

That confidence was a little offputting to some of the veterans in June, when Bastardo was called up.

"I think he got off on the wrong foot with some guys when he first was a starter, [sitting] in the dugout, because he's very laid-back, almost like he doesn't care," Eyre said. "But he's a good kid, and he does care, and he wants to do better and he wants to be good."

How good can he be?

He's 18-9, with a 2.58 earned run average in 61 minor league appearances in four seasons, 46 of them starts.

Manuel thinks he can follow a track like that of, say, Joba Chamberlain, the burly Yankees righthander whose relief efforts in late 2007 and early 2008 led to expected ascent to the Yanks' rotation.

Manuel figures the slight Bastardo needs to beef up his 5-11, 195-pound frame, but, yes, he thinks Bastardo can progress from situational lefty to back-end bullpen piece to starter.

"I think he can work himself into being a starter. I think you've got to pace him. I think he's going to grow," Manuel said.

Bastardo can adjust: "I have the ability to make adjustments as I am called. I have that gift."

It was on display Thursday, despite Manuel's instructions . . . which, after the first two pitches, he regretted, a bit.

"When he got ahead of him, I said, 'Damn. I hope he hooks him,' " Manuel said, wishing Ruiz would call the slider. "And he did. He threw him two! Good ones!"

With, maybe, more to come. *