Phils Hold On to Down Rockies, 7-5

If you looked at Larry Bowa's lineup card before Thursday afternoon's 7-5 win over the Colorado Rockies at the Vet, it would look like the Phils' skipper is a desperate man. Looking to ignite any type of spark beneath his languid hitters, it seemed Bowa was willing to try anything.

So far he's tried the positive approach with his players. He's ripped them. He's held closed-door meetings, he's benched guys and he's even moved them around in the order a few slots. Every experiment he's tried has ended up exploding in his face like a trick cigar in the cartoons. Nothing really seemed to work.

Until now.

	Doug Glanville is called out at the plate on a questionable call in the fifth inning.

Thursday's experiment, one in which he took the players names, shuffled them like a deck of cards and found a suitable order, seems to have worked for now. He moved regular leadoff hitter Doug Glanville to seventh and moved rookie Jimmy Rollins up a spot to the top of the order. He flip-flopped Scott Rolen and Bobby Abreu to fourth and third, respectively, and sat Pat Burrell down in favor of Rob Ducey.

But in the beginning of Thursday's tilt, it looked like Bowa was smoking that exploding cigar again, as Rockies starter Pedro Astacio tore through the Phillies' lineup like a train through a papier-maché wall, retiring the first 11 he faced and not allowing a hit until the fifth inning. But by the seventh, Bowa looked like a crafty genius, rubbing his hands together and plotting his next successful move.

And since Bowa is a restless soul, who knows what he'll try tomorrow. When prodded about revealing his next attempt to score some runs, Bowa wouldn't tip his hand.

"I'm going to go home and sleep," he said. "I don't know what I'll do until tomorrow."

A three-run, five-hit fifth and a three-run, four-hit eighth highlighted a game in which the bats finally found a groove. Meanwhile, former leadoff man (at least for a day) Glanville, who had been 1-for-25 with runners in scoring position, knocked in two runs with a single and a sacrifice fly and starter Amaury Telemaco improved his record to 3-0.

But it wasn't as easy at it sounded.

Starter Telemaco came out of the gate with what he labeled less than ideal stuff. He gave up back-to-back doubles to Todd Hollandsworth and Neifi Perez to start the second and a run scoring double to Greg Norton in the third to fall behind 2-0. But despite throwing a lot of pitches — 102 in five innings of work — Telemaco battled through his stint and made the key pitches when he needed them most.

With a runner on third and one out, he was able to wriggle out of the second thanks to a groundout and a strikeout. In the third, with runners on second and third and only one out, he struck out Hollandsworth and got Perez to ground out weakly.

The fourth inning found Telemaco in another jam as Brent Mayne led off with a double, moved to third base on a groundout and was left stranded as the right-hander got another groundout and a whiff.

"The biggest bright spot was that Telemaco didn't have good stuff but he battled and got the win," Bowa said. "He threw a lot of pitches but he battled."

Telemaco knew he didn't have it early in the first inning. Instead of trying force his normal repertoire, he adjusted his mechanics and relied on breaking pitches. And even with Astacio throwing blanks at the Phillies, Telemaco was positive that things would come around for him.

"I don't care if I have good stuff or not if I make a big pitch and battle," Telemaco said. "I just pitched batter to batter and tried to keep it close. With the way things have been going for us, I knew we would get some runs."

With hindsight being what it is (20-20), Telemaco ended up coming through with both prediction and performance.

The Phils got things going in the fifth with a leadoff double by Mike Lieberthal, a single to right by Travis Lee and a single to right by Glanville. Marlon Anderson reached first on a bunt hit that was supposed to be a sacrifice, and pinch-hitter Kevin Jordan tied it at 2 with an RBI single to right.

Gold-glover Larry Walker threw out Glanville at the plate on the hit. But Astacio walked Rob Ducey and Abreu on eight pitches, forcing in Anderson to make it 3-2.

An inning later, Lieberthal got things started with another double and some help from the Rockies' defense. The catcher lofted a floating pop into right-center that could have caught by either Walker or centerfielder Juan Pierre, but a miscommunication between the two resulted in the ball dropping, harmlessly, next to Pierre and Walker.

Lee moved Lieberthal to third on a ground out and Glanville flew out to Walker to drive home the run to make it 4-2.

"I was right in the thick of things," said Glanville, who batted lower than second just once before in nearly 600 starts. "I was aggressive. It worked."

It also seemed that Glanville responded to Bowa's "demotion."

"It was cool," Glanville said about hitting seventh. "As a leadoff guy you feel more responsible about getting the offense started. But there is no quick fix in baseball. If, over time, this ends up working it's a good thing.

"But anytime there's a change you look at it like someone lost their job. I didn't want to dwell on that."

Glanville also said that he used his new place in the order to pick the brains of his teammates as to what the Rockies' pitchers were throwing. For Glanville this was a big role reversal since, as the top guy in the order, he usually had to report back to his teammates about what tendencies he saw.

The Phillies added three more runs in the eighth thanks to a two-run homer by Lee and an RBI single by Tomas Perez to make it 7-2. But even with a big cushion, the Phillies still weren't out of the woods.

Closer Jose Mesa entered the ninth with a seemingly insurmountable lead. However, there was a small problem with Mesa's consistency. Heading into the game, Mesa had not retired the side in order in any of his 10 outings. Thursday, he kept his streak alive.

In only his second game in 11 days, Mesa was shaky from the first pitch. He gave up a single to Pierre, retired Todd Walker after working the count full and then walked Larry Walker on five pitches. He then struck out Todd Helton on a 3-2 count after Helton fouled off four pitches.

Against Norton he again worked to count full, but on his seventh pitch, the third baseman knocked it into a vacant Super Box in deep right to make it 7-5.

Still, Bowa left him in there despite a long deliberation on the mound after Mesa threw two quick balls to Hollandsworth.

"I told him 'Let's go!' in my language and his," Bowa told reporters.

Bowa's oye coma va seemed to have worked as Hollandsworth popped out three pitches later.

"I see that happen a lot with closers when the game is out of hand," Bowa said. "He pitched twice in the last 11 days. I probably wouldn't have pitched him if he wasn't so idle."

For the Phils, Chris Brock pitched the sixth, Rheal Cormier went 1 1-3 innings and Ricky Bottalico got two outs to set it up for Mesa in the ninth. Offensively, Lieberthal knocked out three hits and scored three runs and every position player who played reached base except for Rolen.

But even with all the offensive experimentation, the Phils are still on top of the NL East. At 16-11, the team gets ready for a tough San Francisco Giants team that comes to the Vet for a three-game weekend series starting Friday. Bruce Chen (1-1, 3.58) goes for the Phils against a struggling Livian Hernandez (1-4, 7.84).

Notes: Hollandsworth extended his hitting streak to 16 games. ... Walker walked four times to tie a Rockies single-game record. It was done three other times. ... Jordan is 5-for-8 with five RBIs as a pinch hitter. He was 4-for-24 all of last year. ... Cormier's 1 1/3 scoreless innings extended his streak to nine games and 6 innings without a run. ... The Rockies were 3-for-17 with runners in scoring position.

John R. Finger
ComcastSportsNet.com