Lowe was something like 6-1 with a 1.something era in his last 10 starts of the season.  He also beat the Cubs, giving up 2 runs in 6 innings.  He pitched well against us and kept us quiet for 5 innings, but we beat him.

Billingsley had fantastic numbers over something like his final 12 starts of the regular season.  He also beat the Cubs, giving up 1 run in 6 2/3 innings.  We hammered him.

I think you see where I’m going with this. 

Kuroda shut us down twice this year.  He beat the Cubs as well, giving up no runs in 6 1/3 innings.  Will he give the Dodgers a good start, or will we beat him as well?  I think we’ve got a good shot.

I’ll admit, I do not like the match up.  Moyer has been fantastic this year, but the man rarely throws 7 innings of shutout ball.  You’ve got to figure that Moyer will give up at least 2 runs, hopefully no more than 3, which means that we will need to score runs.  I don’t know that we won’t do that. 

Look, I said before that we have a tendency to pick the Phils apart and fret over their weaknesses and what they do not do well.  I’m pretty sure you must have noticed that, in spite of these weaknesses…they are winning. We just won two games against “tough pitchers” with Rollins and Werth putting up 1-9 efforts and Howard laying an 0-8 goose egg.

The reason I am confident is because the Phils are winning as a team. Victorino is coming up big.  Ruiz is hitting.  Dobbs is solid.  Myers goes 3-3 with 3 rbi and 2 runs scored.  (Whodathunkit?  Feels like destiny.)  In contrast, the Dodgers have been almost all Manny, and they have lost both games.

Back to the pitching.  By all appearances, Lowe will be pitching game 4 on 3 days rest.  Even if the Dodgers win game 3, I can’t see Torre running Maddux out there (I’m guessing that Kershaw is out of consideration since he pitched in game 2) and risking going down 3-1.  Also, by pitching Lowe on Monday, Torre will be set up to pitch him again in game 7 on regular rest.

As I said before, I really think it is going to come down to the Dodgers starting pitching.  I say this because I believe that Moyer, Blanton, and Myers will pitch well enough to keep us in each game.  It will come down to whether or not we can score enough runs to win. (Hamels can get us a win even if the offense is pretty feeble.)  I also say it because we have not done anything against the Dodger bullpen in two games.  I don’t expect anything to change there.  So, we are going to beat the Dodgers by scoring runs on their starters, getting out to a lead, and then having our bullpen close it out, IMO.  The Dodgers need big time performances by their starters to get them back in the series and also to have any chance of winning it.  They need to shut us down, get out to a lead, and let their bullpen close it out. I really think that if we hit their starters, we win the series.

Even if Kuroda wins game 3 against Moyer and Lowe wins game 4 against Blanton, we still have Hamels going up against Billingsley in game 5 and Myers going up against Kuroda in game 6.  I like those game 5 and game 6 match ups a whole lot better.

Before the series started, I picked the Phils to win in 6 because I had this voice in the back of my brain telling me that Lowe would be pitching games 1, 4, and 7.  The idea of Lowe vs Moyer in a game 7, even though it would be at CBP, was unsettling to me, so I let a fair amount of blind fan loyalty creep in and say that we would end it before then.  I sure hope I’m right.

I was haven’t seen it in any of the papers today.

+ I still firmly believe that Victorino is big-time postseason guy, and will continue to be so.
+ I think Howard will have his big moments soon, and I think they will come during games where no one else is producing.
+ When I said Ruiz had “it”, what I was thinking that he won’t be one of those guys that’ll perform worse because it’s the postseason.  I think the way he’s playing now is the same way he’d play if it was a spring training game.

About Rollins, I’m totally rooting for the guy now.  I had this idea of going to all the Phillies blogs and pleading that everyone start chanting “MVP” every time he steps up to the plate, but I thought he wouldn’t need that anymore because of how well he played in Game 4 of the NLDS.  The more quotes I hear from him, the more I think that his biggest problem this year was overthinking things – I don’t know what exactly he’s thinking about, but something’s on his mind, and that’s usually trouble for a baseball player.  My guess would be is that maybe he’s thinking about being more of a prototypical leadoff hitter, but he sucks at it, and we would really be better served if he was up there all the time just trying to hit doubles and triples, and the occasional home run (this similar to what you said much earlier, describing his strengths and weaknesses).

I thought hearing “MVP” chants would help remind him of that, that he wouldn’t have won MVP if he was your prototypical leadoff hitter.

The other thing I’m not drawing a blank on is Hiroki Kuroda, but I’ll save that for tomorrow, I need some time to gather my thoughts.  I’ve had some experience with Japanese people and culture, and I’m going to assume that Kuroda’s background will show up in the game somehow and I’m going to try and predict how.  Or will it just be a case of “baseball is baseball”?  We’ll see…

I really get a sense that the team is very focused, which is great.  They know they have a job to do and they’re going out and doing it.  They’ve certainly come a long way from last year.

Nice to hear Lidge speak so thoughtfully of Manual’s loss.  I like this team, but more importantly, the players seem to genuinely like each other and their leader, Charlie. I hope he’s  alright.

My thoughts and prayers go out to Charlie Manuel and his family.