With their season on the line Roy Halladay gutted his way through 6 innings on the mound and the Phillies won Game 5 by a final score of 4-2 to send the series back to the city of Brotherly Love.
San Francisco looked to close out the NLCS with their best pitcher Tim Lincecum on the mound in front of a raucous crowd at AT&T Park. However, for just the 7th time in MLB history the Phillies were able to defeat a multiple time Cy Young award winner in an elimination game.
The Giants took an early 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first thanks in large part to a miscue by Chase Utley on a Buster Posey grounder to 2nd base. In the bottom of the 2nd, Halladay felt a sharp pain after pulling his right groin during an at-bat against Cody Ross. However rather than leaving the game due to injury, the likely 2010 Cy Young award winner continued to move in between innings to keep his leg from tightening up and pitched his way through pain to keep his team in the game.
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“He was determined he was gonna stay in there,” said Phillies manager Charlie Manuel. “Once he got up to 108 pitches and got us to a place where I felt our bullpen could save him, that’s when we got him out. His velocity on his fastball fell off and he was having trouble pushing off the mound. He threw a lot more cutters and curve balls.”
“He wasn’t gonna let us take him out,” continued Manuel. “He tried to really pump up on (Ross) in the 2nd inning. Came in the dugout to Dubee and the trainers but he was determined he was going to stay in the game. He said he wanted to try. He wanted to keep going. I think he gutted it out. I’ll tell you something else, that was really big and we needed him to.”
“There was a sense that something wasn’t entirely right but the fact that he went back out there. He’s a man,” added Jayson Werth. “He goes back out there and competes. He definitely wasn’t going to give up.”
“That’s him,” Shane Victorino said. “I don’t know what word you can put on him. Do you want to use ‘Superhero?'”
With his fastball velocity significantly down and struggling to find a comfort zone on the mound, Halladay battled his way through 6 innings and allowed 2 runs on 6 hits and 2 walks while striking out 5.
“I was going to try to find a way,” Halladay said. “You just hope that way is good enough to get you through, and fortunately it was today. You go as long as they let you go. Especially at this point. You want the ball and want to be out there. I just told them what was going on. Rich would check with me between innings. I was able to do enough.”
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The Phillies offense was able to do enough sparked in large part thanks to a three run 3rd inning. After a leadoff single by Raul Ibanez snapped a personal 0 for 11 steak during the NLCS, Carlos Ruiz was hit by a pitch to set up a sacrifice situation for Halladay. Doc bunted at the first pitch and after the ball clearly rolled foul, Buster Posey pounced on it and fired down to 3rd to try and get the lead runner. However, Pablo Sandoval was unable to find the bag and both runners advance on what ended up being a wacky 2-5-3 sacrifice bunt.
With 2nd and 3rd and 1 out, Shane Victorino hit a grounder to the right side of the infield and Giants 1st basemen Aubrey Huff booted the ball and knocked it into shallow CF allowing two runs to score. Placido Polanco added an RBI single and the Phillies took a 3-1 lead.
Back to back doubles by Pat Burrell and Cody Ross in the 5th inning cut the Phillies lead to one but Halladay was able to work his way out of a jam in the 5th. After walking Buster Posey to start the 6th, Halladay beared down and got Cody Ross and Juan Uribe to strike out swinging.
After not stealing a base since September 7th, Jimmy Rollins swiped both 2nd and 3rd in the top of the 7th to set up a 1st and 3rd situation with 1 out for pinch hitter Ross Gload. Gload hit a rocket to the right side but it was right at Huff and led to an inning ending 3 unassisted double play.
With the Giants regaining momentum, Jose Contreras and JC Romero combined to pitch a scoreless 7th inning. After pitching an inning and 2/3rds on Wednesday night, Ryan Madson came in for the 8th to face the heart of the Giants order. Madson was brilliant in striking out Buster Posey, Pat Burrell, and Cody Ross in order.
In the top half of the 9th inning the Phillies added some insurance when Jayson Werth hit just the 34th home run by a right handed hitter to RF in AT&T park history. Brad Lidge shut the door on the Giants and the Phillies held on to win Game 5 by a 4-2 final.
With the victory, the Phillies completed the first step to coming back in this NLCS series. Trailing 3 games to 2, Roy Oswalt will take the mound in Game 6 in a rematch of Game 2 against lefty Jonathan Sanchez. However, on this night the story was Roy Halladay pitching through pain and willing himself to allow his teammates to fight another day.
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