Phillies fight back twice and are one win from World Series

Oct 14, 2008 - 6:58 AM By Jonathan Raber PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

LOS ANGELES - The Philadelphia Phillies showed that they still have plenty of fight left in them - and not just in the literal sense.

A day after nearly igniting an on-field fracas with the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Phillies fought back on Monday with their bats.

Public Enemy No. 1 Shane Victorino, who was at the center of Sunday's war of words between the teams, hit a two-run, game-tying homer in the eighth inning. Three batters later, pinch-hitter Matt Stairs followed suit with a two-run bomb of his own that took the air out of Dodger Stadium and put the Phillies ahead for good, 7-5.

"It just shows our fight," Phillies shortstop Jimmy Rollins said. "It's been like that all year."

Despite an attempted comeback by the Dodgers in the bottom half of the eighth, the score would stand with the Phillies capturing Game Four of the National League Championship Series to take a 3-1 series lead and move one win away from advancing to the World Series.

But, a come-from-behind victory didn't seem so likely midway through the game.

After squandering a 2-0 first-inning lead, the Phillies found themselves on the wrong side of the scoreboard on two different occasions.

In the fifth inning, Manny Ramirez and Russell Martin gave the Dodgers life with a pair of runs for the 3-2 lead. Even after the Phillies scratched across a run to even it in the top half of the sixth, here were the Dodgers, stirring the crowd into frenzy on the strength of a Casey Blake home run and a Ryan Howard fielding error for another run.

As it stood, the Phillies trailed, 5-3, with nine outs remaining and the reality that the momentum had clearly shifted to the other dugout.

However, there was still life to be had.

"I don't care if we're down 10 runs," closer Brad Lidge said. "Our hitters believe we're going to catch up and go ahead."

And perhaps there was no one more perfect than Victorino to help ignite the rally.

In the middle of the previous game's altercation for the way he took offense to a pitch that sailed over his head, the speedy center fielder has given the Los Angeles faithful plenty to boo about.

"I guess in a sense he's sticking it to everybody because they're all over him when he goes up there," Howard said.

Victorino torched the Dodgers for four runs in Game 2, and broke their back in this one with his homer off Cory Wade when it appeared that Los Angeles had a victory waiting in the wings.

"My emotions kinda got to me (Sunday) night," Victorino said. "But going into (Monday's) game, you turn the page and forget about it. It was yesterday. Everybody made their point."

Stairs proceeded to drive the point home, belting what he called the greatest pinch-hit home run of his career for the game-winner.

"It just put us over the top in turns of taking momentum back,' Victorino said.

The momentum now clearly resides with the Phillies, who fought back the best way they knew how - with some big time hits.