PHILADELPHIA — Manny Ramirez did his part.
His three-run homer plopped in a front-row flower bed and was enough to make Sandy Koufax rise from his seat and cheer. When Ramirez cocked his head back at the plate and pointed toward the last few fleeting moments of Dodgers blue sky, it was the final time L.A. was looking up.
The Phillies’ vendor hawking souvenirs told fans to buy ‘em now because “there won’t be a Game 6!”
With the way the Dodgers are playing in the NLCS, he might be right.
The latest flop was an 8-5 loss Friday to Philadelphia that put them behind 2-0 in the best-of-seven series. Now the Dodgers have to hope a series shift back to Los Angeles for Game 3 on Sunday will be enough to snap them out of their funk and keep alive their hope for their first World Series trip since 1988.
“They’ve got no pressure,” Ramirez said. “We’ve got to go home and win games. This is it.”
Game 2 starter Chad Billingsley was a disaster from the start and didn’t make it out of the third inning. The Dodgers simply couldn’t get any big hits and they made Phillies starter Brett Myers look like Ramirez at the plate. Heck, Myers had more hits (3-for-3) than anyone in the Dodgers lineup.
Billingsley put Los Angeles in such a big hole early, Myers and the Phillies went right after Ramirez with two runners on in the fourth. Ramirez missed a home run by a foot or two in Game 1, but this shot eked over the left-field fence and landed in the flowers to make it 8-5.
Ramirez walked against Brad Lidge to open the ninth. James Loney’s one-out walk put runners on first and second but Matt Kemp and Nomar Garciaparra stuck out, putting a fitting exclamation on the game for the punchless NL West champs.
Manager Joe Torre gave a brief postgame speech and encouraged the Dodgers to stay positive heading back home. After all, Los Angeles finished a four-game sweep of the Phillies on Aug. 14 at Dodger Stadium.
“He said we’ve worked too hard to get to this point,” third baseman Casey Blake said. “He said we need to remember how you guys fought and had your backs to the wall.”
The 409-foot wall — the deepest part of Citizens Bank Park — was a problem for Blake in the seventh.
Trailing 8-5, Blake hit a deep drive to center with two on and two out that put a brief scare in all those Phillies fans chanting “Beat L.A.!” But Shane Victorino had room and made a leaping catch against the wall, the rally ending softly in his mitt.
“Bummer, man,” Blake said. “Yeah, I knew I hit it pretty good. It just didn’t go anywhere. I thought for sure it had a good chance.”
No team has come back from an 0-2 hole to win the NLCS since Jack Clark and the St. Louis Cardinals rallied to beat the Dodgers in 1985. The Cardinals won four straight to win the series in the first year of the best-of-seven format.
Tommy Lasorda managed the ‘85 Dodgers and was here for this one, too. Lasorda slapped hands with the fans and many stood and applauded when he left his seat and walked the aisle in the fourth inning. Lasorda, born in Norristown, Pa., managed the Dodgers to NLCS wins over the Phillies in 1977 and 1978.
The Hall of Famer sat in the second row behind Koufax and they glumly watched this one. The Dodgers sure could have used the three-time Cy Young Award winner in his prime to win Game 2.
The 24-year-old Billingsley gave the Dodgers a strong start in the division series when he shut down the Cubs in 6 2-3 strong innings. The 16-game winner did strike out four of the first six batters he faced, then ran into a jam with two outs in the second inning. A single, a double, then a run-scoring single by Myers started the damage. Billingsley’s final line was ugly — eight runs, eight hits in only 2 1-3 innings.
Billingsley’s outing was the shortest by a Dodgers pitcher in the NLCS since Jerry Reuss lasted only 1 1-3 innings in 1985 Game 4 against the Cardinals.
“It all got away from me,” Billingsley said.
The rest of the staff wasn’t much better, relievers coming in and out like it was a spring training game.
Los Angeles surely wished this one didn’t count.
Other than Ramirez’s drive, the offense vanished. Only one hit each from the first four hitters in the lineup. Blake DeWitt struck out with the bases loaded to end the third inning, and Blake’s deep drive was recorded as a simple F-8.
“Sometimes when you’re in the locker room and in that lineup, you tend to think things are worse than they are,” Torre said. “You don’t get to this time of the year without having the capabilities of winning three or four games in a row. We just have to get that feel back.”
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
