Major League Baseball

Inside the Game: Phillies' Utley frustrated in Game 3 loss to Giants

Published Oct. 20, 2010 10:15 a.m. ET

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SAN FRANCISCO - Cole Hamels thought he pitched as well as he could pitch.

Matt Cain and the San Francisco bullpen pitched better, blanking the Phillies on three hits in a 3-0 victory at AT&T Park that gave the Giants a two-games-to-one advantage in the best-of-seven National League Championship Series.

Second baseman Chase Utley was among the most frustrated Phillies, going 0 for 4, including two inning-ending at-bats with runners in scoring position.

The Giants improved to 25-14 against the Phillies at AT&T Park and can move to within one win of a trip to the World Series with a victory Wednesday night against Joe Blanton.

Here are some of the things that went wrong for the Phillies in their Game 3 loss:

Killing him softly

Utley was hitless in three at-bats against righthander Matt Cain. Cain's game plan for Utley: Get him with the soft stuff.

The Giants righthander threw Utley 12 pitches and only three were fastballs. Utley swung at only one of the three fastballs and he flied out softly to center field on that pitch in the top of the first inning.

With runners at first and second and two outs in the top of the third, Cain started Utley with a curveball, then threw him three straight changeups. Utley grounded out to shortstop for the final out of the inning.

Utley's final chance to come through in the clutch against Cain came in the fifth after Shane Victorino walked and stole second base. Utley saw just three pitches. He took a slider for a strike and a fastball for a ball before Cain got him to roll over a changeup for a groundout to second base that ended the inning.

In his final at-bat, lefthanded reliever Javier Lopez got Utley to pop out to second baseman Freddy Sanchez.

"The pitching might have something to do with their swing," manager Charlie Manuel said when asked about Utley's hitless afternoon. "Our guys are trying. I mean, they may be trying too hard."

Utley immediately went back to the drawing board, which in his case is the video room, and started preparing for Madison Bumgarner, the Giants' Game 4 starter who has never faced the Phillies.

"You try to find the positives and work from there," Utley said. "Obviously we have a pretty good team. We're not going to back down and feel sorry for ourselves."

No error? No way

Given that Cain and the Giants' bullpen kept the Phillies off the board, San Francisco's third run in the fifth inning was nothing more than insurance against Hamels.

Nevertheless, it should have been an unearned run.

Hamels, after giving up a leadoff double to Aaron Rowand, appeared to pitch his way out of trouble by striking out Cain and getting Edgar Renteria on a fly ball to center field.

The lefthander appeared to be out of the inning when he got Freddy Sanchez to hit a ball right at Utley. The Phillies second baseman stayed back and it deflected off his wrist before shooting into the outfield, which allowed Rowand to score.

Initially it was ruled an error, but the play was later changed to an RBI single for Sanchez. The official scorer should have stuck with his initial instinct.

"At first I thought I was going to be able to catch it," Utley said. "Then I realized I wasn't. So I tried to keep it in front of me. It shot off my wrists to the outfield."

Domination, then disaster

Through three innings, Hamels looked even sharper than he had been during his complete-game shutout that closed out the Phillies' division series with the Cincinnati Reds.

Unlike that game against the Reds, Hamels was using his curveball often and effectively against the Giants. He threw a total of only seven curveballs against the Reds, but it was a big part of his arsenal during three perfect innings against the Giants. That pitch helped keep the Giants' hitters off balance.

"The curveball is the last pitch for him, but today in the bullpen it was good," catcher Carlos Ruiz said. "So we threw a lot of curveballs and we got a lot of swing and miss."

Then in the fourth, the Giants found a way to push across two runs against Hamels.

The white-hot Cody Ross singled in the Giants' first run, but the biggest at-bat of the inning may have been a walk by former Phillies slugger Pat Burrell. After striking out in his previous at-bat, Burrell swung through a cut fastball to start his fourth-inning plate appearance.

Hamels tried to get Burrell to chase a curveball and a changeup, but the Giants' cleanup hitter didn't bite on the bait and eventually worked a five-pitch walk.

"Burrell has a lot of experience," Ruiz said. "He knows Cole has a very good changeup and he didn't swing at his changeup. He had a very good at-bat."

Nothing in the clutch

The Phillies went hitless in five at-bats with runners in scoring position and are now 2-for-19 in the series in those situations. They are hitting .159 (7-for-44) in six postseason games with runners in scoring position.

After Utley stranded runners in scoring position in the third and fifth, Shane Victorino went to the plate with two on and two outs in the seventh, which was the Phillies' final at-bat with runners in scoring position. The leadoff man worked the count in his favor by taking the first two pitches for balls, then got a fastball across the middle of the plate from Cain, but could not connect. He also got two more fastballs later in the at-bat, but fouled one off before grounding out to second base to end the inning.

"I definitely put myself in some good hitting counts, but I wasn't able to get it done," Victorino said. "I had the fastballs I wanted and I missed them. I felt like I missed a couple of times. That's how it goes, sometimes."

Contact staff writer Bob Brookover at 215-854-2577 or bbrookover@phillynews.com.

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