Behind Lee, Phillies pulverize Dodgers 11-0 in Game 3

Using a filthy curveball, Cliff Lee put the clamps on the Dodgers with 10 strikeouts over eight near-flawless innings, while the big bats ambushed Hiroki Kuroda in the first and kept piling it on, as the Phillies crushed the Dodgers and set a postseason record with the largest margin of victory in franchise history (via Todd Zolecki). We'll offer a complete breakdown tomorrow, including drooling tributes to Lee's opus, Ryan Howard's record-setting night (breaking baseball's single-season record for consecutive postseason games with an RBI) and the torrid October being had by favorite son Carlos Ruiz.

Comments

[NEPP]

Leetastic!

[Josh]

Also via Zolecki, Lee's playoff ERA is 0.74, WHIP 0.70, 20/3 K/BB ratio. Dominant.

[MSH]

Great freaking win. We need to rip the Dodgers hearts out tomorrow. Hopefully the bats do not go silent.

[NEPP]

Another quick note before bed, Absolutely awesome graphic for the game thread. Ruiz came up huge tonight offensively and defensively.

[tg082]

There isn't much left to be said, so I'll add only that I'm shocked to see that the Phils are the prime time game tomorrow. I'm very glad that I won't have to rush home from class tomorrow!

[Old Phan]

Dodgers are a very good ball club. They are also toast.

[NEPP]

Phillies have prime-time the rest of the way. Guess MLB realized they might be worth that slot.

[ViennaPhilliesFan]

Awesome Phillies!!...Two more!!! And we love Chooch here in Vienna. He can come here for strudel and wine anytime he wants.

[Dolla Dawg]

Leetastic? Ruizifficent!!

[bsg]

wow that last out was so Bob Boone like!!! what a game carlos!!!!

[A-Train]

Awesome job by Lee. Much like Cole of last year. If Cole can get that back, we'll be partying on Broad Street again!!!

[MG]

Best put with a text message I got:

"Phillies - Superior.

Dodgers - Inferior."

[Bob]

The Phils do seem to make a bit of a practice of following up a blowout like this with a night of slumber by the bats, but Wolf, though no slouch, doesn't seem like the kind of pitcher who is likely to come in and dominate. Who knows for sure?

But what a great game tonight. Lee is unreal when he locks into that groove. I missed the poor throw by Utley, but the other ones I saw looked OK. His swing seems fine. A two hit game with a near miss on a potential 400 foot home run. And Chooch, what do you say about the Chooch? Awesome!

Let's do it again tomorrow night!

[LancPhilsPhan]

bsg: I was watching the game at Iron Hill in Lancaster and thinking the same thing about that last out. I was looking for the ball to pop out of Chooch's glove and land in Howard's. What a great game.

Is Lee trade the greatest trade ever by the Phillies? Well, OK, maybe that little trade with the Cards for Lefty still ranks higher.

[Hugh Mulcahy]

Kentucky Joe has a couple of tough acts to follow. Randy Wolf is a lefty so, you know, he has that going for him. I doubt he feels especially comfortable against this lineup tomorrow.

[TK]

I will echo that text you received MG. It was kind of confusing to me at first, but now it is downright baffling to me how the Dodgers were favored in this series. The Phillies are a better team. If they somehow lose 3 out of the next 5 it will not be because the Dodgers outplayed them, it will be due to underperformance.

Furcal and Belliard as your 1-2 hitters? really? That's a pennant winning combo?

The Dodgers are cooked.

[brad]

It's great that after game 2's Martinez debacle, Manuel has decided that an 8 run lead would have been insufficient to let his bullpen get the final 3 outs, but once Victorino hit the HR, Manuel felt 11-0 was safe enough of a lead to let Lee not go back out and finish the game, after throwing 110+ pitches.

[phlipper]

Hard to believe that there were actually BLers complaining about Charlie letting Lee pitch the eighth.

A little-known Newtonian law of physics is that there is no baseball situation known to man that doesn't elicit complaints from BLers.

[Old Phan]

Phlipper, touche.

[dlhunter]

@brad

Who says Charlie doesn't know strategy?

[bsg]

LancPhilsphan,

Boone said rose was basically ouy of position i guess neve called him off! or something liket that but it all worked out well in the end but yeah ryno was their just in case and watching the phils in the dugout react especially lee was very cool but yeah felt like 1980! there for a second!!

[MG]

brad - If Lee had gotten hurt in the 9th, you never would have heard the end of the howling.

He gave Cholly 8 scoreless and was 114 pitches. Take him out at that point simply as a precaution. That's all.

[Unikruk]

MG: I love an Oldskool Transformers reference.

[phlipper]

And can someone explain to me how Utley could be injured and yet bat as well as he has this series, run with no apparent injury, and throw the baseball during warmups with no hitch in his motion?

He has the yips. Hopefully, he'll get over it. We'll see the next time he has to whip a ball to first after a double-play relay in a tight game.

[CJ]

Couple of things:

1) If Ruiz can do this every postseason, I don't care what he does in the regular season.

2) If Lee doesn't reach base and the Phils go quietly in the 8th, Lee comes back out for the 9th. Charlie said in the post-game presser that 10 more pitches would be no big deal. The issue is that Lee had to stand out in the cold on the bases.

3) Imagine if Ryan Howard wasn't a non-factor.

[CJ]

One other thing... Ryan Howard now holds the record for consecutive postseason games with an RBI in a single season. The record for consecutive postseason games with an RBI all-time is a little known player with 8. I think his name was Lou Gehrig.

Also... largest postseason shutout victory in LCS history.

[Hitman]

Everyone knows that the Phillies go stone cold after a big offensive performance. But not this time. The team is stoked. The series will not return to LA. Phils in five.

[CRH]

A-Rod is getting all the national attention for *finally* performing in the postseason, BUT our boys Ryan Howard and Carlos Ruiz are playing BETTER.

[LancPhilsPhan]

I'm usually wary of the post "blowout game" game, but this time it feels different. I think they're not happy about losing game 2 and are looking to end this thing in Philly.

Chooch is en fuego. Man is he fun to watch hitting out of the 8 hole like he is.

[Verdeforce]

What a wonderful night! Utley successfully shed his Knoblauch nickname tonight eliminating the only real concern left in the Phillies pursuit of a 7th National League pennant ('15,'50,'80,'83,'93,'08,?) Crazy to say this, but I'm not that concerned with how the team does on either Monday or Wednesday, considering the fact that Pedro and Lee are set up to pitch Games 6 and 7 in L.A. Not that anyone would want to go back to L.A. down 3-2, but I think the team can play pretty loose both days knowing that they've got those two to fall back on as a worse-case scenario.

[Matt]

Hitman - as a Game 5 ticketholder, I hope you're right!!

[Bob]

Headed for bed, but you know what? It is very enjoyable sitting here listening to interviews and analysis deep into the playoffs and hearing the announcers talk about the Phils' strengths and hearing the Phils' players philosophize about their win. What a time to be a Phillies fan. I could get used to this.

[Verdeforce]

CJ - you should have stayed watching the TBS coverage a little longer because Ernie Johnson mocked Dennis Eckersley with the fact that he was on the Cardinals team that suffered the worst LCS shutout defeat - 15-0 to the Braves in the mid '90s.

[bay_area_phan]

This was playoff baseball at its finest: tense, taut, and suspenseful up to the very last pitch. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time wondering if the Phils could push the margin of victory to double digits. With his homer in the 9th, to extend the lead from 8 runs to 11, Vic took his place alongside Kirk Gibson, Bill Mazeroski, and Bobby Thompson for the most dramatic homerun in baseball history.

[Klaus]

Hell yeah!!

[strange]

at this point, wouldn't it make sense to move Chooch up in the batting order? I understand that if it ain't broke, etc... but seriously. Dude is hitting over .600 for the postseason.

[Old Phan]

"Philly bats soar; Cliff too tall for LA in Game 3"
Headline on mlb.com.

[CJ]

Verdeforce: Hmmm... someone should have told ESPN about that one!

[CJ]

Ryan Howard has reached base in 16 straight playoff games.

That has non-factor written all over it.

[Ribbies]

This was probably said earlier, but I love that the Phils outscored the Iggles.

[Old Phan]

CJ, can you imagine if he was an elite 1st baseman the damage he could do?

[bay_area_phan]

"And can someone explain to me how Utley could be injured and yet bat as well as he has this series."

I had the same thought. It does seem a little hard to reconcile how he could be injured & still hit so well (although I suppose you might use different muscle groups in hitting than in throwing). One thing I noticed tonight is that Utley is having no trouble whatsoever when he throws out of a side-arm motion. However, when he has been forced to throw overhand -- either because of his positioning or because he simply needs to get more mustard on the throw -- he has made 4 or 5 bad throws in the last 3 games. That could be because of an injury. It could be because of a (hopefully) temporary case of Steve Sax/Chuck Knoblauch Syndrome. Or it could just be a coincidence that several of Utley's occasional bad throws happen to have occurred in close succession to each other.

[ThinkRed]

Lee was all that we could have hoped for in the entire playoffs. I think the Dodgers are going to struggle in CBP and at worst, we head to LA up 3-2.

[G-Town Dave]

b_a_p: I mentioned it before, but Utley bats left & throws right. Totally different hip rotation for each of those movements. Granted, I don't know if it's physical (hip), physical (other), mental or just a fluke non-issue, but it is possible to have difficulty doing one & not the other.

[Replacement Player]

I just wanted to say, good luck, Phils. We're all counting on you.

[EastFallowfield]

"Everyone knows the Phillies go cold after games like this."

Actually, if you look at 2009 at least, there are times where they score a bunch in consecutive games. Just don't get remembered as well as when they don't.

Sometimes they score 13 two games in a row, sometimes they go from 22 to 3.

[EastFallowfield]

Daily News Front Page

[EastFallowfield]

"Chase Utley has reached base in his last 23 postseason games, dating to Game 2 of the 2007 Division Series against Colorado. It’s the second-longest streak in postseason history, behind only Boog Powell, who reached safely in 25 straight games."

[EastFallowfield]

Daily News Front Page (bigger)

[EastFallowfield]

Inky front page

[Marc H]

My only concern at this point is the all or nothing nature of this offense.

[Zudok]

Let's keep those bats hot, fellas, and give Randy Wolf the beat-down he so richly deserves. I'd love to see him dragging his little California self back to the dugout very, very early. Then he can put his sneakers back on and start thinking about who he's be playing for next year.

[IOP]

Trade Howard!!

Oh, ummmm, scratch that.

[EastFallowfield]

2009: Phils scored anywhere from 10 to 22 runs in the regular season 18 times.

# of runs in the 'next game': 82

Avg: 4.5 runs per game, a little below their 5.12 runs per game average.

[CY]

Amazing game last night! Love a no sweat victory.

Do you think we got the good time slot today because Fox has the ALCS and TBS the NLCS. Seems like they would have to share the prime time slot with Fox getting it on friday and us today.

No way we would get the slot otherwise imo.

[GBrettfan]

Do you think Howard sees any more pitches to hit? Mitch often says all Ryan's SO's help him get RBIs, b/c teams pitch to him feeling they can strike him out. But the way he's been hitting, I wonder whether he'll get pitched to anymore.

OTOH, if they should walk him, Werthy (heard Ryan call him that) is perfectly capable of making them pay for that.

And I wouldn't be suprised to see Chooch walked, as well, with the pitcher due up after him.

Last night was fun! Let's do it again a few more times!

[NEPP]

Does anyone else think that Ryan Howard is now the leader of this team? Or at least Ryno and Jimmy? I used to wonder who took Burrell's place in the clubhouse but I really think it is Ryan.

Scott Lauber has a good blog entry today.

http://blogs.delawareonline.com/philledin/

[Tony D]

Great win. We were due for a blowout. The more I think about it the more I think the Phils are just a better team then the Dodgers.

[philwynk]

I'm a little curious: Ryan Howard has obviously made some sort of adjustment in his hitting strategy. He's not getting so many deep fly balls, and he's not striking out nearly as much. Instead, he's driving the ball laterally, driving in runs with doubles, triples, and singles. He may not hit 40 home runs next year if he keeps this up, but his batting average will be a lot higher, and his RBI total might be higher, too.

Anybody have any idea what he did?

[phlipper]

" I mentioned it before, but Utley bats left & throws right. Totally different hip rotation for each of those movements."

Not buying it.

Utley is running very smoothly. I can't imagine any kind of a major hip injury that would hurt when throwing right and not when batting left or when running. And presumably, Utley is throwing just fine during warmups.

It did seem like his better throws last night were more sidearm than over the top, so maybe there's some kind of right shoulder/arm injury involved - but even that seems unlikely with the way he's been pounding the ball (like the shot to the deepest part of the park last night).

More likely, he's got a case of the yips. Hopefully, it is a mild case.

[mvptommyd]

Here is a interesting article from today's LA Times. Basically the article is about Don Mattingly saying that the West Coast media isn't hard enough on the Dodgers players like the East coast media is on their teams. Also, saying that the players laugh at the emdia on the west coast because they miss so much that the players should be held accountable for doing wrong.

http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-simers19-2009oct19,0,6682232.column?page=2

[NEPP]

yo, new thread!