Randy Wolf

It was another special moment for Randy Wolf and his brother Jim. Had the first game turned out differently, however, it could have been a highly controversial moment for baseball. For the second time in three years, Jim Wolf was assigned to work as an umpire in a game involving the Phillies, the team that employs his brother, Randy. The last time was during the 1999 season in a game at San Francisco's Candlestick Park. Randy Wolf did not pitch that day. He did pitch the second game of yesterday's doubleheader against the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field, and his brother was working as an umpire at third base.

In a cold, steady drizzle at Lackawanna County Stadium, Randy Wolf stood atop the mound, knocking clumps of mud from his cleats and awaiting his next test. Wolf was making only his second start at triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, the newest team for the prodigious lefthander who the Phillies hope can become their next major-league attraction. The weekend crowd of 4,222, wrapped in coats and huddled beneath umbrellas, had come to see the strawberry-blond Southern Californian with the charm of Happy Days' Richie Cunningham.

Down and up, down and up, down and up again. You have just read the abridged version of lefthander Randy Wolf's 2001 season. Where Wolf or any of his teammates have been, of course, doesn't really matter. They only are concerned with where the Phillies might be going. Win now is all that's important for teams in contention. That's what the Phillies did last night at Veterans Stadium in front of a small but energized crowd of 17,169. They beat the Cincinnati Reds, 8-0, and remained one game behind the first-place Atlanta Braves in the National League East.

In the beginning, there was the Schill-O-Meter. Then came the Byrd Cage. If the upper reaches of Veterans Stadium can be taken as a measuring stick, the Phillies rotation is beginning to prove its mettle. Up in the nosebleed menagerie, guys in hairy masks danced and cheered and high-fived by a hand-painted sheet proclaiming themselves the Wolf Pack. Down below, amazing rookie Randy Wolf was busy holding the Pirates to four hits and two runs in seven innings as the Phillies opened their short homestand with a 3-2 win over Pittsburgh.

These are the Phillies everyone had expected to see. These are the results: The Phillies beat Atlanta, 8-1, last night at Turner Field to take their second series against the Braves in a week, and their third against them this season. The Phils have won seven of their last nine games and moved to 7 1/2 games behind Atlanta in the National League East. "I don't know where it was or what happened exactly, but to me it was kind of a matter of time before we started playing better," Phillies pitcher Randy Wolf said.

Turbulence was more than just choppy air on charter flights for the Phillies a year ago. Anger, uncertainty and agitation became a way of life for Larry Bowa's players, a fact the manager more readily admits to now that his first season in charge is behind him. At ease, his players quickly learned, is rarely among Bowa's lexicon of military terms. "Let's face it - Bowa is a tornado sometimes," reliever Ricky Bottalico said yesterday after the team's pitchers and catchers completed their first spring-training workout at the Carpenter Complex.

Philadelphians do love baseball. They do love their Phillies. You just have to go to Baltimore to see it. The Phillies began their annual weekend interleague trek to Inner Harbor with a strong pitching performance by Randy Wolf, four home runs, and a 6-2 win over the Baltimore Orioles last night at Camden Yards. Or should we say Veterans Stadium South? Nah, we wouldn't do that to this 11-year-old baseball palace that is so pleasing to the senses. But the place was loaded with Phillies fans.

One night the Phillies' offense runs like a Corvette. Sleek, bold and powerful. The next night, it resembles a Pinto. Meek, old and leaking oil at almost every turn. The offense - and the club's bullpen - did just enough sputtering last night to allow the injury-ravaged New York Mets to escape with a 5-4 victory at soggy Shea Stadium. Tony Clark singled home the winning run with one out in the ninth, ending the Phils' winning streak at three games. Clark stroked Terry Adams' 1-1 pitch to right to score Marco Scutaro, who had opened the inning with a single and advanced to second on a groundout.

Everything was going so nicely. Jose Lima was pitching like the old Jose Lima, not the new Jose Lima. The Phillies had an early four-run lead. And Randy Wolf appeared to be headed for his first win since the middle of July. Then, in a six-batter span in the sixth inning, it all fell apart for the Phillies last night at Veterans Stadium. Before you knew it, they were tumbling to another loss, a 6-5 setback at the hands of the Houston Astros. The defeat stung because it dropped the Phillies under the .500 mark for the first time since May 3. Exactly one month earlier, the Phils had beaten Arizona to rise to a season-high 13 games over .500.

Chris Brock looked as if he were auditioning for a bit part in a Bruce Lee movie as he stomped up and down the Phillies dugout in the bottom of the seventh inning last night. Brock kicked and punched all nonliving things in his path before finally cooling off and taking a seat. The fiery righthanded reliever was upset because moments earlier he had become the latest Phillies pitcher to be victimized by the lethal bat of gifted Montreal Expos rightfielder Vladimir Guerrero.

And now, once more with feeling, baseball plays its September song. It touches off the unofficial beginning of the stretch drive. Except that this year the annual passion play lacks some of its usual drama. Barring a cataclysmic turn of events, the National League postseason is set. The Phillies will play the Arizona Diamondbacks in the first round, with the defending world champion Giants a real longshot. The Milwaukee Brewers and Atlanta Braves will face off, with the winners meeting for the right to advance to the World Series.

THEY WERE lined up in front of him, like duckpins, and Cliff Lee picked them off one by one. Willie Hernandez and Wayne Twitchell in the second inning. Cole Hamels in the third, Hall of Famer Steve Carlton in the fourth, Randy Wolf in the fifth. J.C. Romero and Carlton, again, in the sixth. Curt Schilling and Tommy Greene in the seventh. Grover Cleveland Alexander, HOF, in the eighth, a milestone that had been in the books since 1916. And when it was all over, Cliff Lee walked off the mound at Citizens Bank Park after a 5-0 win over the Boston Red Sox to the delirious applause of yet another sellout crowd last night.

Jaime Garcia carried a perfect game into the eighth inning and finished with a two-hitter, dominating the visiting Milwaukee Brewers in a 6-0 victory for the St. Louis Cardinals last night. Garcia (4-0) issued a four-pitch walk to Casey McGehee with one out in the eighth. On the next pitch, Yuniesky Betancourt grounded a solid single to left to end the no-hit bid. Garcia threw a four-hit shutout to beat the Padres in his first start, but hadn't gone longer than six innings in any of his next five outings.

ASK COLE HAMELS to compare the way his body feels now with the way he felt at this point last season, and he struggles to come up with an answer. There is no question his pitching line looks different. Through 29 starts this season, he has a 3.06 ERA, the lowest it has been since he finished Sept. 2 of his heralded 2008 season with a 3.01 mark. Through 29 starts last season, he had a 4.07 ERA. He is striking out more batters (9.0 per nine vs. 7.9 per nine) and allowing fewer baserunners (1.165 walks/hits per inning vs. 1.286 WHIP)

Kyle Kendrick thought his pitches were better than his pitching line Sunday at Citizens Bank Park. Regardless, the bottom line was not good for the Phillies or the pitcher with the least job security in the starting rotation. Given a chance to pull into a first-place tie with the Atlanta Braves, the Phillies instead found themselves in a three-run hole before they had a chance to hit. More than three hours later, they were left to deal with a 6-2 defeat to former teammate Randy Wolf and the Milwaukee Brewers, which kept them one game behind Atlanta in the National League East.

Their young ace has been beaten and supplanted. They lost a game 11-0, then, the next night, lost on the last pitch. The Dodgers are reeling, and they don't have answers. "They're the champions. They have such a good lineup," Manny Ramirez said of the Phillies during yesterday's practice. "To beat those guys, you cannot make mistakes. They're getting the big hit at the right time. What can you do?" You can send righthanded mercenary Vicente Padilla to the mound instead of 21-year-old lefty Clayton Kershaw.

It was the biggest moment of the season. All over Philadelphia, in the stands at Citizens Bank Park, in both dugouts, people tensed as Jonathan Broxton, an out away from tying the series with the Phillies, fired a fastball to Jimmy Rollins. In the Dodgers' clubhouse, the tension was . . . absent. "Actually, I was here, taking a shower," Manny Ramirez said. He did not witness Rollins' two-run double that won Game 4 of the National League Championship Series and gave the Phillies a 3-1 lead in the best-of-seven competition.

NOT BAD for Plan D. Precise, if not perfect, Randy Wolf returned to Philadelphia and made his strongest supporters Dodger blue. A strong contingent of the once-mighty Wolf Pack attended last night's Game 4 of the National League Championship Series. A half-dozen of them came, four as guests of Wolf, their favorite Phillie during his tenure from 1999-2006. Rachel, 10, daughter of John, one of the eight Wood brothers who founded the Pack and spawned copycat fan groups, overcame a 101-degree noontime fever and braved temperatures in the 40s. Like her dad and uncles, she hoped to see Wolf pitch well.

There will be six wolves - er, Wolfs? - at the Bank tonight. Actually, five wolves and one lucky pup. But they won't be a Wolf Pack. Not tonight. The Wood family, creators and performers of the Wolf Pack, will have six seats at Game 4 of the National League Championship Series tonight at Citizens Bank Park. They will watch Randy Wolf, once their favorite Phillie, start - only he'll be pitching for the enemy, the Los Angeles Dodgers. So, no Wolf Pack banner; no rubber wolf masks; no ch ainsaw Strike 3 mimes; none of the antics, wardrobe and props that made them an entertaining fixture for Wolf's home outings as a Phillie from 1999-2006.

Former Phillies pitcher Randy Wolf , who will start for Los Angeles tomorrow night in Game 4 of the National League Championship Series, can understand if the fans who used to cheer him at Citizens Bank Park root against him. "If I were a Philly fan, I'd turn on me," he said yesterday. Wolf, a lefthander the Phillies drafted in 1997 and started from 1999 to 2006, will pitch opposite lefthander Joe Blanton . The weather is expected to be winterlike for Game 3 tonight and Game 4 tomorrow night at Citizens Bank Park.