Paul Hagen: Charlie sticks to his game plan for Pedro

LOS ANGELES - Former Red Sox manager Grady Little and Charlie Manuel are good friends. Little was fired by Boston, in large part, because of the frenzied backlash after he left in Pedro Martinez just long enough to allow the Yankees to tie, and eventually win, Game 7 of the 2003 American League Championship Series.

The Phillies manager won't get canned this winter, no matter what happens in the rest of the postseason. But as he boarded the team charter back to Philadelphia late yesterday afternoon, he was already being roasted for doing the exact opposite of what got Little into trouble.

Yes, baseball is a funny game.

Manuel lifted Martinez from Game 2 of the National League Championship Series at Dodger Stadium, with a 1-0 lead, after only 87 pitches. He had shut out the Dodgers on two singles through the first seven innings.

The Phillies lost, 2-1, when the bullpen gave up the lead in the eighth.

For this, he gets points for consistency. He had said, after the somewhat surprising announcement that Martinez would get the assignment over Joe Blanton or J.A. Happ, that he was looking for somewhere between 75 and 90 pitches from a 37-year-old who hadn't pitched since Sept. 30, while leaving open the possibility he could be extended slightly beyond that.

The result, however, made those consistency points about as useful as Confederate money.

"He was gone," Manuel said later. "I mean, I think he was spent . . . It was a hot day and he hadn't pitched in [2 1/2 weeks]. He did a tremendous job and he actually took it farther than I anticipated when the game started. To me, Pedro was done."

One who did not second-guess the move was Martinez himself.

"I felt pretty fresh. But at the same time, that's the temptation of pushing it. You push it and then what happens the next time? It was [a long layoff] without pitching. It's the first time I've ever done that in my career, if I'm not mistaken," he said.

"It's a little risk. You either pay for one or take the other. I'm not saying I'm going to get hurt, because I've been pretty healthy, but after [that much time], I think seven innings was good enough.

"I would have loved to go one more or maybe the rest of the game, if I knew I was going to stay healthy the next day."

Manuel allowed Martinez to throw 130 pitches against the Mets on Sept. 13. In his next start, he popped a rib and ended up throwing only seven more ineffective innings the rest of the season.

If the manager had let him stay in and he'd been hurt again, he'd have been ripped.

If he'd let him stay in and Martinez had given up the decisive runs, he'd have been toasted, too.

That just comes as part of the job description. It's easy enough to criticize the quick hook, now that everybody knows what happened. It might have been better if he had kept him in the game.

Of course, it also could have been worse.

Dodgers third baseman Casey Blake, on how he felt when he realized that he wouldn't be facing Pedro Martinez when he led off the bottom of the eighth: "Very happy."

It didn't change the outcome of the game, but Phillies rightfielder Jayson Werth made a smart play in the bottom of the eighth inning.

The Dodgers already had scored the tying run and had the bases loaded when Matt Kemp hit a long fly toward the rightfield corner. Werth looked as though he had a play, but pulled up and allowed the ball to drop in foul territory.

The reason, of course, was that the runner at third, Dodgers catcher Russell Martin, easily could have tagged up and scored, and it would have been dumb to trade an out for the go-ahead run at that point.

"Once I saw it was going to go foul, it was hands off," he said.

As it turned out, Martin scored one batter later when Happ walked Andre Ethier.

The Phillies started all lefthanders against Colorado in the National League Division Series, but that's not as unusual as you might expect, press box pal Clem Comly wrote. His research turned up 10 previous occasions when that occurred in a postseason series: 1997 NLDS (Giants, three games); 1997 ALDS (Mariners, four); 1995 NLCS (Reds, three); 1995 NLDS (Reds, three); 1981 ALCS (Yankees, three); 1980 ALCS (Yankees, three); 1975 ALCS (A's, three); 1975 NLCS (Pirates, three); 1918 Cubs (World Series, six) and 1917 New York Giants (World Series, six).

* Darren Daulton, catcher and team leader of the 1993 Phillies' pennant-winning team, is expected to throw out the first pitch before Game 3 tomorrow night.

* Sacramento correspondent Doug Kelly points out that Dodgers third-base coach Larry Bowa has worn the uniform of all four teams still alive this postseason. He played, coached and managed the Phillies and was third-base coach for both the Yankees and Angels.

5: Relief pitchers used by the Phillies in the eighth inning.

15: Straight postseason games in which Ryan Howard has reached base.

93: Announced temperature at first pitch. The Phillies and Dodgers are in for quite a shock when the series moves to Philadelphia for Game 3. The forecast is for rain and a low of 39 degrees, according to weatherbug.com. *

Send e-mail to hagenp@phillynews.com.