Lee's Walk-Off Homer Gives Phils Dramatic, Comeback Win

Nobody is really sure who actually coined the term. If you ask baseball writers, they'll tell you it was Dennis Eckersley, who so happened to have created half of the baseball jargon that drips oh so poetically from the pens of the scribes and the lips of the players alike.

But whether it was Eck or a ballplayer or some hack in the press box, there is only one phrase that could be used to describe the Phillies stunning victory of the Montreal Expos Friday night in the Vet:

Walk-off piece.

Travis Lee ripped a bomb to the seats in right with two on, two outs and two strikes off closer Ugueth Urbina to give the Phils a stunning, come-from-behind, 10-8 win. Just when you think that some team has finally got the Phils' number, Lee goes ahead and pulls off a stunt like this.

	Johnny Estrada is congratulated after clubbing his first big league homer.

Seemingly, the Phils were finished when the ninth inning crept around. Down 8-6 after sneaking back into it and letting it slip away, the odds were stacked against the team. After all, they were 1-15 when trailing after eight innings and, surely, facing a closer with nasty stuff like Urbina doesn't help matters either.

But this Phillies team isn't like the team that played here last season. With these guys, the statistics can be shredded up and tossed out the window. With the way this club has been playing, nobody is going to believe those statistics anyway.

"We can't get down," Friday's hero Lee said. "If you think you're out of it, he's down at the other end of the dugout screaming his guts out. He won't let you quit."

He, of course, is the Phils firebrand of a manager, Larry Bowa. He, as described by Lee, won't let anyone ever think the game is over. He's the kind of guy who would call timeout, down by 10, with only seconds to go in a basketball game. In fact, just before Lee headed for the plate, he heard his manager mutter under his breath:

"Someone hit a three-run homer and let's get out of here."

So Lee just followed orders.

But Lee isn't the only one who is simply following orders. If you, Mr. Reader, are one of the few who has been watching this club play, day-in and day-out, since day one, then you have seen this all before. Sure, Friday night's exploits were a little more dramatic than in nights past, but the script is more than vaguely familiar.

By now — 46 games into the season — it's starting to become commonplace. It's kind of old hat. When the Phillies find themselves down in a game, some how, some way they comeback. Those 12,000 or so fans that show up every night at the Vet are starting to get spoiled.

The again, there seemed to be a little more to this particular comeback. It felt like it was something more than just a walk-off piece. In a way, it felt like a defining moment or something to be shown on a video retrospective that people can point to and say, "Every thing was different after this moment."

The comeback against the Expos — the club's second in a row and umpteenth this season — may just be the stamp that has people thinking that, yes, maybe this team is for real. Maybe, just maybe, we can utter those digits from that magical year when another Phillies team defied the odds, the pundits and the National League to ingrain it's aura and personality within the very fabric of the city. Oh yeah, it was that deep.

1993?

OK. Before we get overly dramatic and too prone to undue histrionics, maybe we should remember that May hasn't even come to an end. Then again it is Memorial Day weekend and throughout the annals of baseball (or at least back to when division play started), 80 percent of the teams that are in first place at the end of May, stay in first place until the beginning of October.

Maybe most importantly and definitely more interestingly, these Phillies seem unimpressed. Sure, they seem excited as evidenced by the mauling of Lee by his teammates after he jumped on home plate for the 10th run. But the team is treating their almost daily, mid-inning comeback exploits with a ho-hum, nonchalance that ill-fits a club that earned the worst record in the National League a season ago. It's almost as if this club, essentially the same except for its firebrand new manager, expects to win every game no matter how far it falls behind.

"We're not just playing, we're competing," the manager said. "It doesn't matter who were up against, we aren't going to quit."

But Friday night's fight was in need of some extra scrappiness. Not only did the team have to come back from a ninth inning, 8-6 deficit, they were down 3-1 as the game passed the halfway point. And though it normally has been rock-solid, the team had to battle through some shaky starting pitching from Amaury Telemaco and middle-relief pitching by Chris Brock and Rheal Cormier. Even though the team clawed back the pitchers still had to try to hang on.

A little matador defense, if you will.

Luckily, Lee helped gore the bull.

"All I was thinking was don't strikeout. I choked-up and just wanted to put a good swing on the ball," Lee said. "I didn't know where it was going until I looked up when I was halfway to first."

The ninth started with a four-pitch, leadoff walk to pinch hitter Rob Ducey. Next, Doug Glanville and Jimmy Rollins both whiffed. Bobby Abreu fell behind 1-2 before working a walk and bringing the winning run — Scott Rolen — to the plate. Like Abreu before him, Rolen fell into a two-strike hole and like Abreu he battled out but instead of a walk, he laced an RBI single up the middle.

That brought up Lee, who fell behind before you could pronounce "Ugueth."

"The first pitch was a cutter I've never seen before. It was nasty. Then I missed a sinker and I'm thinking just don't strike out," Lee said.

But then Urbina had a brain cramp or something. Instead of concentrating on finishing off Lee and the game, the closer pump-faked two pick-off attempts to third, trying to catch Abreu napping. The little deke made everyone in the park wonder where Urbina's mind was.

"I don't know what he was thinking," Lee said. "He's got a guy down 0-2 after throwing some nasty pitches and he's bluffing to third? I was wondering, 'What's he doing?'"

But then, even more inexplicably, Urbina threw Lee a fastball or a cutter that didn't cut all the way. Either way, it ended up a souvenir.

"I'm not an emotional guy but when I got to third and saw my teammates waiting for me... it was awesome," Lee said. "It was such a great feeling. Then they pounded the hell out of me."

Lost in Lee's heroics, yet visible in the agate type of the boxscore is the first Major League win for Cuban expatriate Eddie Oropesa and the first Major League homer for catcher Johnny Estrada. The catcher's three-run shot in the fourth gave the Phils a 4-3 lead and looked like it was going to be the catalyst for the win. That was before the bullpen problems in the seventh.

Oropesa, meanwhile, views the game as a bit of vindication for years struggling in the minors after fleeing from his homeland.

"It's incredible after all these years in the minors," he said in Spanish. "But it doesn't feel like it took a long time. I knew it was going to happen sooner or later."

But until Lee stroked the ball into the cloudy night, it didn't look like Friday would be the night. Lately, the Phils have been using strong starting pitching to get the string of recent wins. With Telemaco struggling in his five innings, giving up four runs and four walks, Bowa tried to tap into his firemen who have been one of the team's biggest surprises and clutch performers this season. But when they used kerosene to douse the Expos' sparks, it looked a bit grim for the team.

Brock, Cormier and Gomes combined for four runs, seven hits and two walks in 2 1/3 innings. Mostly, those hits weren't bleeders finding holes just past the gloves of the infielders. Those hits were frozen ropes.

Vladimir Guerrero and Lee Stevens ripped back-to-back doubles in the seventh for two runs and Curtis Pride smashed a triple into the gap in the eighth for two more. To top it off, as the Phils 'pen struggled, the Expos relievers were lights-out. Graeme Lloyd and Guillermo Mota retired six straight in the seventh and eighth before turning the game — and the Expos' fate — over to Urbina.

Saturday, the Phillies' fate rests in the right arm of Paul Byrd, who is making his return to the majors after shoulder surgery and a rehab stint in the minors. And in order to keep up with his teammates, Byrd will have to work hard. The team has won four in a row and seven of their last eight. Despite a win by the Braves against the Pirates Friday night, the Phillies 29-17 record has them 6 ½ games up on the NL East and two games better than the rest of the league.

Sunday the team finishes the series and its longest homestand of the season before heading to New York to really prove if they are for really.

Notes: The last walk-off homer for the Phils was an inside-the-park job by Abreu against the Giants last August 27. ... Rolen (3-for-5 with 3 RBIs) and Burrell each stroked doubles and are now tied for fifth in the National League with 14 each. ... The Expos runs in the seventh snapped a string of 10 1/3 scoreless innings pitched by the bullpen. The 'pen is 11-5 this season. ... To make room for Byrd on the roster, the Phillies sent Nelson Figueroa back to Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. The team also transferred Mike Lieberthal from the 15-day disabled list to the 60-day DL.

John R. Finger
ComcastSportsNet.com