You can't beat perfection: Lidge nails it shut again

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - The Phillies' unenclosed bullpen, midway between third base and the left-field wall in Tropicana Field's spacious foul ground, gave Brad Lidge a perfect vantage point for the last innings of Game 1 of the World Series.

The Phillies closer stood high on the mound, pausing between pitches to glance in at the action, first as Ryan Madson shut down the Rays in the eighth, then as the Phillies faced three Tampa Bay pitchers in the ninth.

"It lets you get a better look in at what the hitters are doing," Lidge said. "It helps you get into a tempo, a pace."

Lidge had seen it all before - a game and a Phillies lead moving toward him.

He might have been indoors last night, and on baseball's biggest stage, but his job - baseball's most pressure-packed - hadn't changed. And neither would the result.

Lidge's perfect season continued as he pitched a one-two-three ninth inning against the middle of the Rays' lineup to preserve a 3-2 victory for Cole Hamels and the Phillies in the Series opener.

The Phillies' offense didn't make it easy. After stranding runners all night, with a chance to pad the lead Lidge would have to hold, they left two more on in the ninth.

So precisely at 11:51 p.m., with the narrowest of margins, Lidge took a deep breath, hitched his shoulders, descended the bullpen mound, and strode toward the playing field.

He was well-rested, not having pitched since the Oct. 15 pennant clincher in Los Angeles, though he said that probably wasn't a factor.

"On the days off, I'm still thinking about what I need to do," Lidge said. "So the rest doesn't really figure into it. All I'm thinking about there is the three hitters I'm going to face and how I want to get them out."

As the bottom of the ninth began, the frenetic noise of the 40,783 fans at this first World Series game in Rays franchise history shook the stadium, rumbling from corner to corner like a runaway train.

Lidge had to face the Rays' third, fourth and fifth hitters: Carlos Peña, Evan Longoria and Carl Crawford.

"I was feeling very confident," he said.

He got ahead of Peña with a pair of sliders, then put him away on a checked swing with another.

That brought up Longoria, the Rays' most dangerous hitter but one whom Hamels had handled. Again, Lidge got ahead of him and put him away with a slider.

Only Crawford, who had homered off Hamels in the fourth, stood between the Phillies and their first World Series win since Game 5 in 1993.

The count went to 2-2 as some fans, perhaps familiar with Lidge's record, headed for the exits. A slider missed and the count went full.

The clapping, the cowbells and the voices grew stronger again, a din silenced quickly by a full-count foul ball. Then another.

Crawford stepped out of the box and Carlos Ruiz went out to talk with Lidge, who didn't appear as if he needed any advice.

Crawford lifted a high pop and Pedro Feliz retreated into foul territory, very near the spot where Lidge had stood and watched just a few minutes ago. The third baseman stumbled backward but caught the ball.

Lidge pumped a fist. With his 47th save without a miss complete - 41 in the regular season and six in the postseason - he began the ritual handshakes.

"That was very important," Lidge said of the Game 1 win. "But we'd have downplayed it if we lost."

And tonight, when Game 2 nears its conclusion, Lidge will be there again.

"You're seeing why a closer is so important in today's game," Phillies pitching coach Ruch Dubee said. "And we're fortunate to have one of the best."