He entered the ninth inning of a one-run game again last night, the second time in a row. This time, unlike his three-out save in Game 3, he was assigned one man, one out. He had jammed Troy Tulowitzki with a fastball the night before, a night that he fed and fooled batters with a cutter he's been toying with all season. Now here was Tulowitzki again, only this time with two runners on, two men out.
This was a recipe for disaster even in his finest days, a recipe he never had to deal with when putting together his perfect season a year ago. The rule was simple then. Lidge gets a clean inning. Lidge doesn't clean up someone else's mess.
This is not a year ago. Lidge was the forgotten man when this first round began, or the reason most used in predicting the Phillies would not survive it. They had no closer. They had closers by committee.
"When he blew his first save, I think I started answering the question who is your closer, who is your closer, who is your closer," Charlie Manuel was saying last night. "I kept saying Lidge, Lidge, Lidge. And finally one night in Washington . . . it hit me that we weren't going to win the game. And I thought he's not going to do it."
Manuel brought in Ryan Madson. The Phillies won. "But it was hard for me to do that, because I am a loyal person," the manager said. "But at the same time . . . I'm a manager today because I don't let my heart overweigh the importance of the game."
