Major League Baseball

Tim Kawakami: Fear the beard, or fear the Phillies?

Published Oct. 18, 2010 10:10 a.m. ET

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PHILADELPHIA -- Have the Giants awakened the dragon?

That was the feeling in the air here Sunday, as the mighty Philadelphia Phillies bellowed, beat their chests and knocked around the Giants in Game 2 of the National League Championship Series.

Just one game, of course. The Phillies' high-decibel 6-1 victory at Citizens Bank Park only tied the series, which now moves to San Francisco for the next three games.

Just one game, which the Phillies needed much more desperately than the Giants did.

But from the moment in the seventh inning when slumping Philadelphia shortstop Jimmy Rollins ripped a laser-shot double off the right-field wall -- it drove in three runs and put away the Giants -- this game felt larger.

The Phillies' bats, after much frustration in the early part of the playoffs, are awake and thundering now.

Which probably changes almost everything.

"We played them pretty good," said Jonathan Sanchez, the Giants' starting pitcher who battled through early trouble to keep the game close. "They've got to play a big game to beat us."

But that's exactly what Philadelphia did Sunday. They played big. They raised themselves up, and, probably as a consequence, forced the Giants into some uncharacteristic and punishing errors.

Yes, the Phillies made the Giants look a bit small. Now the Giants go home and hope they either get larger themselves, or that the Phillies shrink back again.

"You've got to play your best ball to beat this team," Giants manager Bruce Bochy said, "and we were a little off tonight."

The Phillies got a big eight-inning performance out of starter Roy Oswalt, a huge swing of the bat from Rollins, and patient, powerful at-bats from most of their array of stars.

They went large. That's what the Phillies can do. And it's precisely what the scrappy-go-lucky Giants cannot duplicate.

"They have a great offense," Giants first baseman Aubrey Huff said. "But they capitalized in big situations. They got the big hit with the bases loaded.

"We just haven't put enough pressure offensively on them."

If the Phillies start hitting, however, there are not many teams that can go blast for blast with them.

That is, unless Cody Ross, who Sunday hit his fourth home run in the Giants' last three playoff games, is prepared to hit five or six more the rest of this series.

"It's all right," catcher Buster Posey said. "Obviously, you want to win every game. I don't think anybody's satisfied with just going 1-1. But we'll keep grinding and grinding."

Otherwise, Rollins, the Oakland native, Ryan Howard (three hits, including a rousing double in Game 2), Chase Utley and Jayson Werth and the others have the proven capabilities to take over this series.

After this game was over, the Phillies didn't seem overjoyed -- they just seemed relieved.

The Phillies came into this game hitting only .212 in the postseason after a lackluster offensive performance in the NLDS sweep of Cincinnati and a relatively stifled outing against Tim Lincecum in Game 1.

But the Phillies are the team that has gone to back-to-back World Series, and they probably were going to come alive at some point offensively.

"Nobody expected us to be here," Huff said. "We came here, in a hostile environment, and they've got a great pitching staff and we've got the same. So we're 1-1 and going home. We can't ask for much more than that."

There is now a solid chance that the Phillies -- after their brief lull and 1-0 deficit against the Giants -- have kicked it back to their usual high level.

Individually, Rollins was two-for-16 in the playoffs before his seventh-inning at-bat and was the focus of intense debate and worry.

Then came the seventh, when Bochy ordered an intentional walk of Werth to load the bases, to set up reliever Santiago Casilla against Rollins.

After Rollins got to second base, he shouted and pumped his fist.

"It was something that was needed at the time," Rollins said of his double, which pushed the Phillies lead from 3-1 to 6-1. "I was glad I was the person up there at the moment and able to come through.

"But you don't celebrate until you win four games. And once we get to that point, then you can look back and say that was a big hit. But for now, it just gave us a little breathing room."

They can take up a lot of room, these Phillies. They can put pressure on every facet of the game, and the Giants responded with several physical and mental errors, including two by third baseman Mike Fontenot.

The Phillies, when they're THE PHILLIES, can do that to anybody. It happened to the Giants in Game 2, and, maybe, the rest of this series, if the Giants let it.

Read Tim Kawakami's Talking Points blog at blogs.mercurynews.com/kawakami . Contact him at tkawakami@mercurynews.com or 408-920-5442.

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