After quick stop home, Phils head to L.A.

So why did the Phillies come home from Colorado?

After knocking off the Rockies on Monday night, wouldn't it have been less tiring for the Phillies to continue on to Los Angeles for the National League Championship Series?

Maybe less tiring. Not necessarily less complicated.

"We considered all options," said Frank Coppenbarger, the Phillies' director of team travel and clubhouse services.

The team uses a chartered plane when it flies anywhere.

"Booking flights was no problem," Coppenbarger said. "We thought it was best for everyone to go home, reload, and catch our breath a little bit."

With baseball superstitions in mind, it is usually considered bad karma to pack for games you don't know you are going to play.

Still, there wasn't much time to breathe here. The flight from Denver landed yesterday morning at Philadelphia International Airport at 3:15. Phillies players and others in the traveling party got back to Citizens Bank Park, then picked up their cars and went home. They were scheduled to gather again at Citizens Bank Park to depart for the airport last night at 6:30. Maybe they had 12 hours.

It wasn't mandatory, by the way, for Phillies players to come back here.

"A few of the players who lived in California decided to go directly to California on their own," Coppenbarger said.

He declined to name the players who headed west from Denver. But the Phillies have several players from Southern California, including Chase Utley, Greg Dobbs, Ben Francisco, and Ryan Madson.

For those who came back to Philly, one reason was clothing. The Phillies had a traveling party to Denver of 126 people - each player was allowed to bring one family member or friend.

"People were packed for very cold weather," Coppenbarger said. "We wanted to do what was best for everyone, the players and their families."

The traveling party was still riding high on the flight home after the Phillies, down to their last strike, had come back to pull out Game 4, winning 5-4.

On the plane, were people sleeping or celebrating?

"A little bit of both,'' said Bonnie Clark, the team's vice president of communications. "Some chose to sleep, some took the opportunity to celebrate."

One player who didn't make the back-and-forth trip is expected to be tomorrow's Game 1 NLCS starter. Cole Hamels stayed back after his wife gave birth to their first child on Friday. Hamels would have pitched Game 5 here last night if the Phillies hadn't won Game 4.

Coppenbarger knows one group that wasn't banking on the Phillies' getting past the Rockies.

"On top of it all, we lost the hotel we had" in Los Angeles, Coppenbarger said yesterday. "We had to scramble. That made it a challenge."

Coppenbarger declined to say which hotel in Los Angeles canceled the Phillies out, or where the team will now stay.

"In the playoffs and World Series, business contracts are always subject to change based on availability," Coppenbarger said. "They took the sure business over the maybe business."