Phillies beat Cardinals on Ruiz walkoff homer in 10th inning

JOSE CONTRERAS walked to the mound with a packed house around him, a tie game on the scoreboard above him, nine innings of drama behind him, and one thought on his mind.

"I have to do this," he said to himself. "My mother is actually here."

Modesta Camejo attended her first baseball game last night. She watched her 38-year-old son play a boy's game for the first time in her life. And, thanks to a game-winning home run by Carlos Ruiz and a spectacular eight-inning pitching performance by Cole Hamels, she watched both him and his teammates record a much-needed victory.

The Phillies' 2-1 win over the Cardinals, sealed by Ruiz' leadoff shot in the bottom of the 10th, had its share of drama, none of it greater than a mother who, just days after being reunited with her son, witnessed for the first time the reason he left his family and defected from Cuba in 2003.

She watched Hamels sparkle for eight scoreless innings, allowing six hits and striking out eight, before giving up a pair of doubles in the ninth inning to tie the game at 1-1. She watched Brad Lidge work out of his stickiest situation since returning from the disabled list, inheriting the go-ahead run on second with no outs and stranding him by retiring three of the four hitters he faced.

She watched Contreras pitch a scoreless 10th inning, striking out two while pounding the lower half of the strike zone with a devastating combination of high-90's fastball and low-80's splitter. And, finally, she watched him sprint out of the dugout as Ruiz' solo shot off of Blake Hawksworth sailed into the leftfield seats, then wrap his catcher in a big hug amid the teeming mass of Phillies players oozing down the foul territory in front of the dugout.

"You can only imagine the emotion I was feeling," said Contreras, who improved to 2-1, lowered his ERA to 1.17, and finished with 18 strikeouts in just 7 2/3 innings of work this season.

The performance, from start to finish, left manager Charlie Manuel feeling pretty darn good about his own circumstances. He entered this series with St. Louis with little idea of what to expect from either Lidge, who was activated from the disabled list on Friday but pitched in just one low-pressure situation in a weekend series against the Mets, or Hamels, who has looked sharp for much of his first five starts, but nevertheless entered yesterday carrying a 5.28 ERA.

Factor in the news he received Monday, that setup man Ryan Madson needed surgery on his toe that would sideline him for at least 2 months, and you couldn't blame him if he were the most pessimistic first-place manager in the history of the sport.

But then Joe Blanton returned to the rotation on Monday and threw 6 2/3 strong innings in a loss, which set the stage for dominant performances by Hamels and Lidge in last night's victory. Relying heavily on a cutter that at times reached the low-90's, and routinely changing elevations on a fastball that sat between 92-94 mph, Hamels baffled a Cardinals team that entered the night with the best record in the majors. He struck out the vaunted righthanded tandem of Albert Pujols and Matt Holliday three of the eight times he faced them, allowing just one base hit.

"It feels good," Manuel said. "It feels good to see Cole pitch like that."

Hamels finished the eighth inning with 111 pitches, two less than his season-high, but Manuel says he never considered sending somebody else out to the mound for the ninth inning.

"I wanted to see him throw a shutout," he said. "That would be real big for him."

Instead, Hamels allowed doubles to David Freese and Yadier Molina, bringing Lidge in from the bullpen with the go-ahead run on second base and no outs.

At the beginning of the inning, a fan ran onto the field as Hamels was in his windup for the first pitch. Unlike the night before, when a 17-year-old was Tasered by a police officer, the intrusion ended without incident.

Afterward, Hamels refused to blame the incident for the run he allowed.

"I don't allow that to affect me," he said. "It's kind of like the weather. I have a job to do, and I have to make my pitches."

That brought Lidge running in from the bullpen. Manuel began the week saying he wanted to ease his closer back into high-pressure situations. But in a tie game, he was forced to throw him into the fire, and Lidge responded, allowing his only baserunner by way of an intentional walk.

Then came Contreras. And, finally, Ruiz, who improved the Phillies to 15-11 with his blast.

"He's a very underrated clutch hitter, and I think he shows that when he hits in the postseason," Lidge said of Ruiz. "When he gets a chance, he's as lethal as anybody in this lineup."

The end result was a much-needed win: both for the Phillies, and for a mother and her son.

For more Phillies coverage and opinion, read David Murphy's blog, High Cheese, at http://go.philly.com/highcheese.