Chad Billingsley tries to extend Dodgers' season
BASEBALL
'It's pretty much do or die,' says the pitcher who takes the mound tonight against the Phillies.
With their season on the line, the Dodgers send 16-game winner Chad Billingsley to the mound at Dodger Stadium this evening, trying to stave off elimination in the National League championship series.
Trailing the best-of-seven series 3-1, the Dodgers need a victory tonight just to send the series back to Philadelphia for games 6 and possibly 7 at Citizens Bank Park, where they haven't won in 14 months.
"It's pretty much do or die," said Billingsley, who gave up a career-high eight runs (seven earned) in 2 1/3 innings last time out against the Phillies. "We've just got to come ready to play."
The Phillies will counter with left-hander Cole Hamels, 14-game winning in the regular season who has been brilliant in October, permitting two runs on eight hits in 15 innings. In Game 1 of this series he beat Derek Lowe and the Dodgers, giving up a pair of runs in seven innings.
"I'm very confident," said Phillies center fielder Shane Victorino. "He's a guy that you'd [like] to give the ball to every night. [But] it's still far from over. There's still a big game that we've got to win."
The Dodgers made some small changes to their lineup, returning Matt Kemp to center field and batting him seventh, elevating third baseman Casey Blake to the sixth spot and dropping second baseman Blake DeWitt to eighth. The Phillies, meanwhile, moved Pedro Feliz back to third in place of Greg Dobbs and left Victorino in the sixth spot in the batting order.
Victorino has 11 RBI in the postseason, including a game-tying two-run home run in the eighth inning of Game 4. And that production has helped make up for the continued struggles of Ryan Howard and Jimmy Rollins, the last two National League MVPs who are hitting a combined .152 with one RBI in the league championship series.
"When you think of a contributor or something like that, you look up and you say, 'Well, they're not doing as good as they should,' or 'They're not having a great series'," Phillies Manager Charlie Manuel said. "But Howard got a huge hit [Monday] night. To me, if you do something in the game, that's the whole thing of being relaxed and playing the game right."
The Lineups
Phillies
SS-Rollins
RF-Werth
2B-Utley
1B-Howard
LF-Burrell
CF-Victorino
3B-Feliz
C-Ruiz
P-Hamels
Dodgers
SS-Furcal
RF-Ethier
LF-Ramirez
C-Martin
1B-Loney
3B-Blake
CF-Kemp
2B-DeWitt
P-Billingsley
kevin.baxter@latimes.com
