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Phillies Win A Wet And Wild Finish

Tribune photo by CHRIS URSO

Phillies celebrate Carlos Ruiz's hit that scored Eric Bruntlett.

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By MARC LANCASTER | The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 26, 2008

PHILADELPHIA - It's different in October.

That was one of Joe Maddon's favorite talking points this season, from the first days of pitchers' fielding practice in spring training on through those sometimes indistinguishable games in the midst of a six-month season. When something is really on the line, every single pitch matters.

In the early morning hours Sunday, a bizarre sequence of events cost the Rays the momentum they had gained with some conjuring of their own not long earlier. An errant pitch by J.P. Howell and another by Grant Balfour, a wild throw by Dioner Navarro and a Carlos Ruiz dribbler down the third base line later, the Phillies were celebrating a 5-4 victory to regain control of the World Series.

Game 3 ended with Evan Longoria sprawled on the ground, his desperate flip toward Navarro about 10 feet too high to cut down Eric Bruntlett at the plate. Now trailing the Series two games to one, the Rays will have to pick themselves up tonight by setting aside one of the more frustrating losses they have incurred to date.

But it will be tough to forget how this one ended.

"It was just one of those days where the things that they did were right and the baseball gods were on their side," Longoria said.

The tension really began to mount in the seventh inning when the Rays chased Phillies starter Jamie Moyer, who had held a 4-1 edge entering the frame. Tampa Bay pushed across two runs on a pair of groundouts to make it 4-3, then tied the game in the eighth on a one-man show by B.J. Upton.

After reaching on an infield single off Ryan Madson when Jimmy Rollins double-clutched on the throw, Upton manufactured a run single-handedly. Carlos Pena struck out, but Upton stole second on the first pitch to Evan Longoria. He broke for third on Madson's next delivery and slid in ahead of the throw from Ruiz, which bounced away toward the stands as Upton raced home with the tying run.

Howell compounded the local misery in the bottom of the inning, coming on after Chad Bradford walked Jayson Werth to strike out Chase Utley. Werth stole second during that at-bat, but with Ryan Howard at the plate, he leaned the wrong way and got picked off by Howell for the second out of the inning. A few curveballs later, Howell got a called third strike on the slugger to stun the home fans once again.

The game wasn't over, but plenty of energy was sucked out of a crowd that had spent hours just waiting around for the game to begin. It came back in a hurry, though, when Howell hit Bruntlett with a pitch to open the ninth.

"I cut it a little bit too much, and that's the way it works sometimes," Howell said.

With Shane Victorino coming up and likely trying to bunt Bruntlett into scoring position, the Rays went to the hard-throwing Balfour out of the bullpen. Victorino squared around on this first pitch but took it for a strike. Balfour's second offering nearly hit him in the leg and ticked off Navarro's glove, flying to the backstop.

"I tried to throw inside to him to get him to foul it off and try to strike him out," said Balfour. "I felt confident I could strike this guy out and keep the runner at first and go from there, maybe a double play ball and get out of the inning. I tried to do too much and throw it inside and I missed."

The ball bounced back so quickly that Navarro had a play on Bruntlett going to second, but the catcher – whose throws had been dead-on all night – saw his attempt tail to the right and end up in center field, putting Bruntlett on third with the winning run.

"I thought I had a bead on second, which I'm pretty sure I did, and I just made a bad throw," said Navarro. "That's the bottom line. I made a bad throw."

The Rays went to the kitchen-sink defense at that do-or-die juncture, intentionally walking the next two batters to load the bases and bringing Ben Zobrist in from right field to become a fifth infielder, playing behind the mound – the second time the Rays have tried that alignment this season. It didn't come into play last time, in a walk-off loss to the White Sox in August, and the same was true this time.

Getting a steady stream of fastballs from Balfour, Ruiz finally chopped the 2-2 pitch maybe 30 feet down the third base line. Longoria charged the ball frantically but had little chance to make the play and his flip ended up sailing well over Navarro's head as Bruntlett slid home safely.

"It was really just good fortune on their part," Longoria said. "He couldn't have picked up that ball and rolled it to a better spot. Grant makes a good pitch and if he hits it a little bit harder we have a double play, but he just hit it in the right spot."

In the seconds before Longoria scooped it up, it appeared the ball might have a chance to roll foul, but the third baseman insisted it was staying fair and no one on the Rays' side disagreed with him.

"It's tough to defend that," Balfour said. "It's just one of those ones that you'd prefer him to hit it harder. Usually you don't want guys to hit the ball harder, but in that instance you did."

A trio of hard-hit balls earlier in the game had the Phillies in control most of the way before the Rays' late rally. Ruiz, Utley and Howard each hit solo homers off Rays starter Matt Garza, with Utley and Howard going back-to-back to open the sixth. The two left-handed hitters were fortunate enough to be working with the fierce wind that raked Citizens Bank Park most of the evening, the only remnant of a day of storms that culminated in a 91-minute delay before the game finally started at 10:06 p.m.

While Utley and Howard got a boost from the left-to-right gale, Longoria had been stunned to see the top of the sixth come to an end when Pat Burrell caught what initially appeared to be a sure homer a few feet shy of the wall.

"He hit it and I thought, 'Oh, boy,'" said Moyer, who added that once Burrell caught the wind-beaten ball, "I felt like I had gotten away with one."

Longoria said he was "stunned" the ball didn't leave the park.

"I've never seen anything like that before," he said.

There was plenty of that sentiment going around in Game 3.

Reporter Marc Lancaster can be reached at (813) 259-7227.

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