Heading into their National League Championship series with the Philadelphia Phillies, the Los Angeles Dodgers were believed to hold an advantage because of their superior bullpen. But in Monday night's crucial Game Four, it was Joe Torre's relief corps that faltered in the end.
Rewind back to Friday, when Pedro Martinez and Vicente Padilla treated fans at Chavez Ravine to an epic duel. The Phillies' Martinez looked like his vintage self, allowing just two hits in seven scoreless innings. Padilla, meanwhile, surrendered only a fourth-inning home run by Philadelphia first baseman Ryan Howard in a gem of his own. Down 1-0 in the series and feeling as though they had to win to avoid heading to Philly in a 2-0 hole, the men in blue mounted an eighth-inning rally against relievers Chan Ho Park, Scott Eyre, Ryan Madson and J.A. Happ to recover and earn a 2-1 victory. The go-ahead run scored on a bases-loaded walk that Happ issued to Andre Ethier — the very definition of a bullpen meltdown.
But Sunday's Game Three quickly returned the momentum to Charlie Manuel's dugout, as the Phillies jumped on L.A.'s starter Hiroki Kuroda for six early runs, while their ace, Cliff Lee, delivered yet another stellar performance. Lee blanked the Dodgers for eight innings and struck out 10 batters without issuing a walk, and the Phils regained the series lead with a convincing 11-0 rout.
Joe Blanton then took the mound for the Phillies to start Game 4, hoping to build on a streak of 15 consecutive scoreless frames hurled by Philadelphia starters. The portly right-hander was handed a 2-0 lead after the first inning via a two-run homer by Howard, and he kept the Dodgers off the board until the fourth. Run-scoring singles by James Loney and Russell Martin finally got L.A. out of its funk, and the raucous crowd at Citizens Bank Park was suddenly quieted with the home team trailing midway through the contest.
Down 4-2, the Phillies countered when Chase Utley drove in Shane Victorino after the Flyin' Hawaiian had tripled with one out in the bottom of the sixth. But they were still behind 4-3 with just nine outs to work with in their bid to prevent L.A. from tying the NLCS at two games apiece.
Lefties Hong-Chih Kuo and George Sherrill combined to take care of the seventh inning. In the eighth, Sherrill was relieved by closer Jonathan Broxton, who stranded Victorino at second to post yet another goose egg on the board. So far, so good for the vaunted tandem anchoring Torre's dynamic relief staff — and when Brad Lidge, who was 0-8 with a 7.21 ERA in the regular season entered after a one-out single by Rafael Furcal, the Dodgers felt confident that they would win the battle of the bullpens.
Lidge promptly allowed a stolen base and uncorked a wild pitch, further straining the nerves of the Philly faithful as Furcal advanced to third. But Lidge channeled his dominant prowess of years past, unleashing a devastating backdoor slider with the count at 2-2 that left the powerful Ethier staring and shaking his head.
The Phillies' ninth-inning man, who elicited concern and criticism from pundits nationwide, had done his job, setting the stage for Broxton — who was as dominant as any closer during the regular season, allowing just 44 hits and piling up 114 strikeouts in 76 innings of work — to make or break the series for the Dodgers.
After retiring Raul Ibanez on a groundout to start the inning, the 6-foot-4, nearly 300-pound behemoth Broxton iced up like a deer in headlights. He walked pinch-hitter Matt Stairs and then plunked Carlos Ruiz with a first-pitch fastball. Broxton was lucky to have Greg Dobbs' liner land safely in third-baseman Casey Blake's glove for the second out of the inning, bringing Jimmy Rollins to the plate with the game on the line.
Broxton fired three consecutive fastballs, all of them clocking 98 or 99 miles per hour. Rollins fouled off the first for strike one and took the second to even the count at 1-1. Then, the veteran shortstop erased all the pain of his frustrating 2009 season with one swing of the bat, sending the third straight heater into the right-centerfield gap. Pinch-runner Eric Bruntlett scored easily and Ruiz came around to the plate well ahead of the throw, as the Phillies celebrated a 5-4 walkoff victory in front of a revitalized crowd. Broxton, meanwhile, slowly receded into the visitor's dugout with a look of sheer embarrassment on his face.
The sinking closer of the Phillies had righted his ship and the surging closer of the Dodgers had struck a damaging iceberg and put his team on the brink of elimination. Now leading the series three games to one, the Phillies have sapped the Dodgers of their primary edge in the matchup and are a win away from becoming the first National League squad since the 1995-96 Atlanta Braves to advance to the World Series in consecutive years.
