Phillies-Rockies: Top 10 Notes from Game Three

10) It’s awfully nice of MLB to show the defending World Series champions to the working man. Once. Provided he wants to stay up until well past 2 am EST. Bud Selig Blows Goats.

9) Brad Lidge got the save tonight and didn’t give up anything that was hard hit, but anyone that thinks Lights Out is back is out of their freaking mind. He was behind every hitter in the ninth, the fastball was up in the zone, and the slider wasn’t much. He remains a nightmare of worry.

8) Ryan Howard is a beast of a man right now, and his game-winning sacrifice fly was a thing of beauty. There isn’t a hitter in baseball you want to face less when he’s hot.

7) Carlos Gonzalez and Andre Ethier are both products of the Oakland farm system and are both in the state of their careers when even poor poor poor little old cashing the revenue sharing checks Oakland could afford to play them.

Luckily instead, we have Ryan Sweeney, Travis Buck, and a half dozen other guys that you could not pick out of a police lineup as baseball players. But remember, Billy Beane Is A Genius! (Also, Gonzalez is a Dykstra-esque animal right now. Yeesh.)

6) The game-winning run was scored by Jimmy Rollins, and it was the first run he’s scored this series. It’s kind of amazing that the Phillies are up 2-1 with that statement being true.

5) Forgotten in the relief of Lidge Not Failing tonight: thoroughly useful relief from Chad Durbin (three up, three down in the eighth) and fairly acceptable work from Ryan Madson (one inherited runner scored in a situation when he came in with major trouble brewing) and Joe Blanton (eight outs, one run).

4) I get that Matt Stairs is adorable, and his bomb last year against Jonathan Broxton will earn him eternal love and free beer in Philadelphia. But when you get blown away by the very middling cheese of Rafael Betancourt, it’s time to find a better option than a 41-year-old non-fastball hitter with no defensive position.

3) Rockies Fan (they exist?) has to be bent out of shape over Chase Utley’s ninth inning infield single that should not have happened. But before the puling gets too far in earnest, it’s not as if the umps missed an out there; had the play been called properly, Utley is still in the box. The Phillies got a break there, but it wasn’t the reason the Rocks lost, and on some level, you need to just reward the player for hustling.

2) Game Threes are almost always huge, and this one was no different. If Cliff Lee can continue his Game One mastery—and the Rockies’ seemingly eternal struggles with left-handed pitching—the Phils will close the books and be on their way to Los Angeles for the relatively short flight. If not, it’s back to Philly without a travel day for Cole Hamels and all hands.

1) Finally, this—every winning playoff team has a Secret Killer, and for the Phillies, it’s Carlos Ruiz. He was 2-for-4 with two RBI singles tonight, which brings his career postseason batting average up to .281—35 points higher than his career regular season numbers, 50 points higher in slugging, and about 50 points higher in OBA, too. If you project his postseason RBI rate to 600 ABs in the regular season, he drives in 85.

From the eight hole, from a guy that absolutely no one ever worries about.

Sabermetric baseball fan might not believe in clutch, but Philly Fan does—because he believes in Chooch.

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