DENVER - Buy the bulk-size antacids. If this division series was any indication, the Phillies are going to frazzle your nerves and keep you up late for the rest of October and maybe the early part of November, too.
That's the bad news. The good news is that the defending champions have slipped right back into their 2008 postseason groove. The Phillies don't make it easy, on themselves or on their jangled fans, but they have become one of those teams that do whatever it takes to win.
"We're going to find a way to get it done," said Brad Lidge, who established himself again as the man who throws the final pitch. "Our guys don't just have the talent, but they believe in themselves, too. It could be a six-run deficit, and our guys still have the audacity to feel that we're going to come back."
It was two runs, not six, last night. But it was more about how that two-run deficit came about. A fluky play on the basepaths, a two-run double off Ryan Madson - the Phillies went from nursing Cliff Lee's 2-1 masterpiece to watching the Colorado Rockies splash paint all over it.
There were all the ingredients for a complete meltdown, the situation made more tense by the prospect of a Game 5 with who-knows-where-his-head-is Cole Hamels scheduled to pitch. The charmed aura that carried the Phillies through last October and seemed intact with every umpire's call in this series was suddenly dispelled by the Rockies' three-run rally.
Except the Phillies didn't see it that way. They felt, for no rational reason, as if they had this one under control.
"I came running off the field with the feeling that we were going to win the game," rightfielder Jayson Werth said. "In the dugout, everybody was on the same page. Everyone was calm - cool, calm and collected. We knew what we had to do."
Knowing what to do and doing it are what separate the great teams. These Phillies took a big step toward establishing themselves as an all-time team in both halves of the ninth inning.
In the top, for the second straight night, Jimmy Rollins delivered a single off Rockies closer Huston Street. Chase Utley, who turned a foul ball into a single in Game 3, worked a two-out walk to get the tying run on base.
But "tying run" is just a hypothetical phrase until someone does something magnificent in the clutch. Enter Ryan Howard, who continued burnishing his postseason resume with a majestic fly ball to right field. It didn't go out, but it fell in for a game-tying double.
