Now . . .
Hamels pitched to his 10-11 record. Nothing more, nothing less. The 2008 NLCS and World Series MVP pitched more like a VMP-Vexed Matinee Person. He pitched like an expectant father waiting for a phone call that his overdue wife, Heidi, had gone into labor to deliver their firstborn. And sure enough, the man who hates day baseball - with cause, it would appear - was informed by clubhouse manager Frank Coppenbarger that Heidi was in labor the instant he reached the dugout after Manuel pulled him for pinch-hitter Greg Dobbs with one out in the fifth.
What followed ended most of the cat-and-mouse game Manuel had been coyly playing about how he planned to use his pitching staff behind Cliff Lee's complete-game masterpiece. The plot had thickened when Game 3 starting candidate Jay Happ was warming up in the ninth inning.
Charlie waved that off as "just getting loose, that's all." Besides, it was Happ's side day for a Saturday start and he would have thrown about 25 pitches in any event. He even could have come into a left-on-left situation and been OK for a Saturday start.
But when Hamels left trailing the Rockies and sinkerballing righthander Aaron Cook, 4-0, Manuel managed more like it was Game 7 of a World Series than Game 2 of an NLDS where he already held a 1-0 edge. He managed as if all the rules of how to use a staff in this pitch-counting, pitcher-pampering era were suspended.
After Hamels came the deluge . . .
Potential Game 3 starter Joe Blanton worked a 15-pitch, 1-2-3 sixth. So the peanut gallery nodded sagely and said, "OK, that's it. Happ pitches Game 3."
