Philadelphia Phillies Baseball Team

Payback is a pitch. An inside pitch, at their shirts, behind their butts, in their minds. Revenge is heat. The inside kind, making batters dance and bats wobble and thoughts wander. If the Dodgers want to push the Philadelphia Phillies off their throne, they must first push them off the plate. If the Dodgers want to pierce the Philadelphia Phillies heart, they must first be willing to travel under their chins. A year ago, the Phillies pitchers had the Dodgers tasting dirt with constant inside pitches, robbing the young team of its rhythm and confidence in a four-games-to-one beating.

Jonathan Broxton descended to a place on Monday night visited by only a select group of players in Dodgers history. Ralph Branca was there in 1951 when he gave up a pennant-winning three-run home run to Bobby Thomson in a series-deciding playoff game against the Giants that came to be known as "The Shot Heard 'Round the World." Terry Forster was there on the final day of the 1982 regular season when he served up a home run to Joe Morgan that cost the Dodgers the National League West title.

Ryan Howard took measures to protect his eyes, donning a pair of goggles in the Philadelphia clubhouse. He never imagined he would have to worry about his underwear. But there was Pedro Martinez , pouring beer on a pair of the slugger's shorts that dangled from a coat hanger Wednesday night at Citizens Bank Park. "I don't think I've ever played on a team that's been so fun," Howard said after the Phillies eliminated the Dodgers from the National League Championship Series with a 10-4 victory in Game 5. "It's one of the funnest teams I've played on."

Chase Utley saw his first World Series game when, as a 9-year-old growing up outside Los Angeles, he went to see the Dodgers play the Oakland Athletics in 1988. "Game 2," his father, Dave, said. "The game after Kirk Gibson." For two decades that was the closest Utley would come to a dramatic World Series home run until Monday, when he hit two in Philadelphia's 8-6 victory over the New York Yankees in Game 5 of the World Series, extending the Phillies' season for at least two more days.

Jonathan Broxton was a man of few words Tuesday. He said that the two-out, two-run walk-off double he gave up to Jimmy Rollins the previous night was in the past. He said he hadn't watched video of the play and had no intention of doing so. But Manager Joe Torre , who spoke with Broxton on Monday night and again Tuesday, said he believed his All-Star closer would recover from the shock of blowing a save on a night the Dodgers could have tied the National League Championship Series at 2-2. "I think he's all right," said Torre, adding that he told Broxton that if there is a save situation in Game 5 tonight, he would get the ball.

George Sherrill knew something was amiss when his fastballs kept missing high and inside to Ryan Howard , the first batter he faced in the eighth inning. The Dodgers reliever walked Howard and couldn't straighten out his delivery to Jayson Werth . He walked Werth too. Sherrill then threw a first-pitch breaking ball to Raul Ibanez that the left-handed slugger belted for a three-run home run that accounted for the Philadelphia Phillies' final runs during an 8-6 victory in Game 1 of the National League Championship Series on Thursday night at Dodger Stadium.

In what could turn out to be the most pivotal moment of his magical season, Andre Ethier said he didn't hear the roar of 56,000 fans at Dodger Stadium. Instead, he said, he heard the calming voice of his hitting coach. "Don't be too aggressive," Don Mattingly's voice told him. "Don't get yourself out." Game tied, bases loaded and down to the Dodgers' final strike in the eighth inning, Ethier let one pitch by J.A. Happ sail by him. Then another. And another. Ball four.

Hiroki Kuroda pursed his lips and craned his neck. He scratched the back of his head and grunted. "I'll replay this in my head," he said Sunday as he dressed in a nearly empty clubhouse. There wasn't much for him to replay. On a night when the Dodgers were held to three hits in eight innings by Cliff Lee in a crushing 11-0 Game 3 defeat that tilted the National League Championship Series in favor of the Philadelphia Phillies, Kuroda retired only four batters. Kuroda made the kind of history he never envisioned making when he took the mound for the first time since Sept.

The Dodgers slapped around Cole Hamels and forced him out of the game with one out in the sixth inning. That wasn't enough. They collected 14 hits and scored six runs. That wasn't enough. They held the opposition to eight hits. That wasn't enough. Not when the opposition was the Philadelphia Phillies. The Dodgers dropped the opening game of the National League Championship Series, falling victim to too many walks and a couple of three-run home runs, by Carlos Ruiz and Raul Ibanez, in an 8-6 loss to the Phillies at Dodger Stadium that had them lamenting how they stranded 10 men and were three for 14 with runners in scoring position.

Some of the highs and lows of watching Dodgers-Phillies Game 2. Say hey "It's another sun-splashed California day," said Chip Caray, which was better than Thursday's "Déjà vu all over again" start to Game 1. But Caray couldn't stop. "Bright sunny skies," he said. "Near 90-degree temperatures." He referred to the sun more times than I wanted to count. Chip, it's Southern California. And, yes, that was the sun. Say what? In the bottom of the fourth, with Manny Ramirez at bat, TBS had a graphic that indicated Ramirez had never hit a postseason home run. Oops.