Posted by Brian Joseph on Tuesday, November 3, 2009 at 12:36 pm

After a tough Game 4 loss on Sunday, the Phillies were pushed to the brink of elimination. Quickly, the blogosphere, sports radio, and the mainstream media ganged up on Charlie Manuel and Brad Lidge as scapegoat 1A and 1B.

After Game 5, the Phillies’ pulse still beats and the questions and criticisms that arose from Game 4 were countered by events from the Phillies second win. The rest of the World Series might not give us the true answer but should provide some insight between the “right” and “wrong” decisions made surrounding Game 4.

Manuel’s Rotation Decision

A loss in the World Series often produces a lot of finger pointing. A loss that puts your team in a 3-1 hole while your best pitching option sat on the bench and your opponent trumped you by tossing their best option on short rest is often going to direct where that finger points.

Despite the fact the Phillies hung tough for 8-2/3 innings against CC Sabathia and friends, there were plenty asking what was Charlie Manuel saving Cliff Lee for. The short criticism was Lee, on short rest, was theoretically a better choice than a well rested Joe Blanton.

It’s a nice thought but it’s hard to tell the effect short rest would have had since Lee never pitched on short rest before. His counterpart, Sabathia, happens to be very familiar with the short rest concept which gave manager Joe Girardi a little more insight into what CC was and was not capable of handling.

But even a normally rested Lee gave up enough runs in Game 5 to lose Game 4. And Blanton — his usual not overly effective but not overly ineffective self — was good enough to give the Phillies a shot. Sabathia, on short rest, was more Houdini than ace as he allowed only three of the ten hits plus walks to score in 6-2/3 innings.

The ripple effect of the decisions are more important to analyze than the decisions themselves, though. In the case of Lee on regular rest, the Phillies won Game 5 rather easily even with their ace getting into trouble late and allowing a few runs to make that red blood pumping through the Phillies’ fans hearts faster. Not to say Blanton couldn’t have done the same, A.J. Burnett was so brutal on short rest it’s likely a healthy Jamie Moyer could have finished the job.

It’s important to note how bad the Burnett outing was one more time and ask how big of an effect the short rest was on A.J.’s performance. The Yankees #2 gave the Bombers little shot to win and now Girardi’s decision to shorten up the rotation has Andy Pettitte on three days rest and, if necessary, Sabathia with back-to-back three days rest outings.

What’s the effect on Pettitte? In the regular season, the 37-year-old is 4-6 with a 4.15 ERA in 14 starts on short rest. His 1.431 WHIP and 1.82 K/BB are both less than his career 1.361 WHIP and 2.34 K/BB. In the postseason, Pettitte has fared much better with three of four short rest starts being effective and wins. But this isn’t that Andy Pettitte. That Pettitte hasn’t pitched on short rest since ‘06 in the regular season and ‘03 in the playoffs. On the Pettitte timeline, this falls somewhere in the vicinity of his admitted HGH use. This Pettitte is apparently not chemically enhanced. Just saying is all.

Then it’s CC on three days for the second outing in a row, if Pettitte can’t close out World Series #27 for the Yankees. The last time Sabathia made back-to-back starts on three days rest was against this same Phillies team in the 2008 NLDS. His results? 3-2/3 innings, six hits, four walks, five runs.

For the Phillies, it’s a normally rested Pedro Martinez and either ‘08 postseason hero turned ‘09 goat Cole Hamels or ‘09 rookie of the year candidate J.A. Happ. Plus, there’s Cliff Lee waiting in the shadows to pull a Randy Johnson. The Yankees remember that Johnson. It was in a Game 7 the Yankees would surely like to forget, following a Game 6 Pettitte would surely love to wash from his memory.

Lights Out For Lidge? Or Just Outplayed

Few will remember that Brad Lidge was one strike away from shutting down the Yankees in the ninth of Game 4. Instead, he’ll be remembered for not covering third base on a Johnny Damon “steal-steal”, letting Mark Teixeira’s invisibility continue to not be a problem by plunking him and giving up a devastating RBI hit to Alex Rodriguez.

Facts are facts, though and Lidge was one pitch away from setting the Phillies fans up for extra innings and hoping the team’s bullpen could outlast Mariano Rivera for however long he decided he wanted to shut the Phillies down for. At some point, a worthy adversary has to get some credit. They get paid, too. (And in the case of the Yankees, they get paid, A LOT!) And Damon earned his paycheck against Lidge. He battled with two strikes, fouled off five pitches in the at-bat and drove a tough 94-mph fastball for a single to keep the Yankees alive.

As many times as Lidge came unglued this year in Philadelphia, this wasn’t one of those times… until Damon reached, of course! But the staggering left cross Damon delivered has to be recognized as one of the best at-bats in recent World Series history. This was the same Lidge that made “Captain Clutch” look foolish the at bat before… or is it “Mr. November”?… or is it “Superman”… or is it the “Greatest Yankee of All-Time”… I can never remember his name. The guy who grounded into a devastating double play in the ninth inning of Game 5. That one!

Few players are able to battle like Damon did in that at-bat. Even if you think A-Rod is “unclutch”, it’s hard to deny that he’s victimized many a pitcher the way he did Lidge in that ninth inning. Sometimes the other team just outplays you. In this ninth inning, that’s what happened.

The good news is there’s at least one more baseball game to be played in ‘09. Even if you’ve reached baseball burn-out and loathe baseball being played the same month as Thanksgiving, this World Series is one to give thanks for should this it get pushed to a seventh game on Wednesday.