OUT OF LEFT FIELD

Maybe we should play with 22 guys every night. Due to minor injuries to Pat Burrell and Kenny Lofton, Charlie Manuel was forced to play career infielder Placido Polanco in left field for last night's game against the Nationals. Ryan Madson was also unavailable due to the three innings he pitched on Sunday. None of this seemed to matter, as the Phils prevailed 5-4 in a game that was much closer than it should have been.

The Phillies took an early lead in the second. Jason Michaels drew a one-out walk, and then the Chaser singled him to third. Bell bounced an easy double play ball to Vinnie Castilla, who relayed to Jose Vidro at short. The Chaser had other ideas, though, and took Vidro out with a textbook double-play exploding slide, forcing Vidro to throw the ball into the Nationals dugout. That scored Michaels and put Bell on second. Cory Lidle then helped his own cause (isn't everyone on the team helping their own cause on every play? What, are some of them trying to lose? Don't answer that.) with an RBI single to plate Bell to make it 2-0. You've got to love the Chaser. He's a dead duck on an inning-ending double play, and he ends up causing two runs to score. That was pretty.

Utley came through again in the third, smacking a one-out bases-loaded hit to score Abreu. Unfortunately, Thome was clogging up the bases behind Bobby and had to stop at third, and then Bell and Lieberthal went down easily to kill the threat. Montreal South got on the board in the bottom of the inning when Brad Wilkerson, who just kills us, hit yet another extra base hit, a ground-rule double, to score Christian Guzman.

The game stayed that way until the sixth. The Chaser started it off with a walk, and moved to second on a Guzman error, which would eventually turn out to cost the Nats the game. After Lieberthal lined out (God he sucks this year), Lidle bunted the runners over, and Jimmy Rollins was intentionally walked. That brought up emergency left fielder Polanco, who ripped a big two-out single to score the Chaser and Bell to make it 5-1. The Nats-pos tacked on a couple more in the bottom of the sixth on an unlikely two-out triple by catcher Brian Schneider. Lidle hung a ball on the inside part of the plate when the entire outfield was playing Schneider away, and he managed to hit a liner all the way to the fence in right center, scoring two.

Despite that bad pitch, Lidle looked good last night. He gave up eight hits and a walk, and three runs, but almost everything was down in the strike zone. If he can maintain that level of performance, the Phils have a shot to stay competitive. Cormier came in and pitched an uneventful seventh, and then Worrell once again attempted to set-up Billy Wagner, with middling results. Vidro hit a ball to deep right that Abreu should have caught, but he got all turned around, lost track of the wall, and made a feeble leap at the last second and missed it for a triple. Jose Guillen immediately sac-flied him in to make it 5-4, and after Worrell got Vinny "Fastballs R Me" Castilla, Manuel brought in Daddy Wags for a four-out save. Wags got pinch hitter Gary Bennett and the first two batters in the ninth before Brad Wilkerson made us all nervous again with another hit. Nick Johnson battled Wagner hard, taking the count to 3-2 and fouling off a few pitches before he also singled, sending Wilkerson to third. Uh-oh. The 18,000 or so (sans Tim Russert) at RFK were stomping their feet, bouncing the lower deck up and down as best they could, as Jose Vidro stepped up. Vidro apparently failed Drama class, though, swinging at the first pitch and lofting an easy fly to Jason Michaels, who had replaced Polanco in left field. Game over, and did we ever need that one.

I guess Placido will be patrolling left again tonight. He looked OK, better than Ryan Howard anyway. He fielded everything hit to him, none of which were more difficult than the average batting practice shagged fly. Comcast named Polanco the player of the game for driving in the last two runs and for not getting himself killed in the outfield, I suppose. I don't know you can overlook Utley for that honor. He almost single-handedly caused the first two runs to score with a classic take-out slide, drove in the third run, and scored the fourth run, plus was flawless in the field. I think the Chaser is making his move to be my new favorite Phillie. It's always been Abreu, because he's on my Strat team and he can do everything, but I love the way Utley plays.

Tonight we're back at RFK, with the ace, Jon Lieber going for his fifth win against John Patterson, who just two-hit the Braves for seven innings in his last start and four-hit the D'Backs for seven before that. Another win would get us back to within a game of .500, and with a sweep we can get to the break-even point before having to face the awesome Marlins pitching staff again. Let's hope we have full roster by then. Or maybe not.