By Chris Ruddick
Some teams just have IT. The New York Yankees' championship teams of the late 1990's had IT. The Boston Red Sox had IT after them. And now there is no question that the team with the IT factor in these playoffs is the Philadelphia Phillies.
What is IT exactly?
It's the feeling of being a champion. It's the feeling that you are better than every team you play before you even take the field. It's believing that even if you fail, the next guy is going to pick you up. You are never out of a game. Whatever the circumstance, whatever the deficit, you are always going to come out on top.
It's what makes a championship team. And there is no better TEAM right now than the Philadelphia Phillies.
The Phillies may have sounded the death knell for Los Angeles Dodgers' World Series hopes on Monday, as they rallied with a pair of runs in the ninth to put Joe Torre's crew on the brink of elimination.
After a ho-hum regular season, some people wondered if the defending champion Phillies would be able to just flick a switch and duplicate the kind of magic that propelled them to a title a year ago.
It is really amazing to watch. You just never get the feeling the Phillies are out of it. In the ninth inning on Monday, Charlie Manuel motioned to Jim Thome in the opposing dugout that Jimmy Rollins was going to get that winning hit. Thome shook his head no and Manuel gestured again that Rollins was going to be the guy.
You can't make this stuff up.
While their postseason hero from last year, Cole Hamels, hasn't really gotten it going, the rest of the team is looking like the one that won the franchise's first World Series title in 25 years last season.
Hamels, though, could be a cause for concern, as he has just been awful. In his two starts he has surrendered eight runs and 15 hits in 10 1/3 innings. That follows up a surprisingly mediocre regular season in which he lost his last two starts and finished 10-11 with a 4.32 ERA.
Forget all that, though, and forget how good Ryan Howard and Cliff Lee have been for a second. The most important piece to a potential back-to-back championship has always been Brad Lidge, and he has been excellent so far in the postseason.
As we all know by now, Lidge blew a league-high 11 saves during the regular season, but is a perfect 3-for-3 in save opportunities and perhaps had his best effort yet on Monday when he got the win after striking out both batters he faced.
SPEAKING OF HOWARD...
Ryan Howard continued his assault on the postseason record books in Monday's win, as his first inning home run gave him an RBI in eight straight postseason games, tying the mark held by Hall of Famer Lou Gehrig, spanning the 1928 and 1932 seasons.
Howard's streak is even more impressive as he has done it all this season with an incredible 14 RBI in eight games.
TORRE GOES WITH PADILLA IN GAME 5
It really is amazing the position the Los Angeles Dodgers are in when you look at their starting rotation. With their season on the line in Game 5 on Wednesday, Torre has decided to give the ball to right-hander Vicente Padilla, who was looking for work in August after being released by the Texas Rangers.
Padilla went 4-0 with a 3.20 ERA in eight games (seven starts) after being picked up by the Dodgers, and he has been even better this postseason, surrendering just a run and eight hits in 14 1/3 innings of work.
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