Phillies Notebook: Lidge returns to familiar role, at least for one game

DENVER - Well before the start of yesterday's game, Brad Lidge learned that the Phillies would be taking the field without their closer as Ryan Madson headed to Los Angeles to be with his wife for the birth of their fourth child. Lidge did not know whether that meant he would be the top option in a save situation. He had not had a save since last season, when he was still 5 months away from the shoulder and elbow trouble that would cost him the first half of 2011.

But manager Charlie Manuel had no doubt. So as the Phillies prepared to enter the bottom of the ninth with an 8-6 lead, he signaled for an old friend to start getting loose.

"Lidge has got a lot of experience, and he's got a big pitch," Manuel said, "so we were going with him."

Later, as Lidge reflected on his scoreless ninth inning, he admitted that the pitcher who took the mound was not the same one who took Philadelphia by storm during a memorable 2008 season in which he converted all 48 of his save opportunities. The three fastballs he threw clocked in at 89 mph, well shy of the 93-95 mph heaters he dealt in his glory days. The 10 sliders he threw were not nearly as hard as the one he used to buckle Eric Hinske's knees for the final out of the Phillies' World Series win.

What looked the same was the result: 13 pitches, nine strikes, one strikeout, two groundouts and his first save of the 2011 season.

"I probably feel like right now my slider is the best command I've ever had with it," Lidge said. "It used to be a little harder, so you have to have better command with it . . . I still feel like I'll be getting closer and closer to where I normally am as the season progresses a little bit. I've kind of had to make a few adjustments this year to make sure I am able to get ahead of hitters, with whatever pitch that is. Whether that used to be a fastball in the past and then put him away with a slider, or whether that's a slider now, you have to get the same result. How ever you have to do it is what you have to do out there."

The same can be said for the Phillies' bullpen as a whole, which has just one blown save this season despite injuries to Lidge, Madson, Jose Contreras and the now-departed J.C. Romero. Lidge became the fourth pitcher to record a save. The three others each have at least five, tying a franchise record that was last set in 2007, when Brett Myers (21), Antonio Alfonseca (eight) and Tom Gordon (six) each surpassed five. (That team had a franchise-record nine players who recorded at least one save.)

Whether Lidge gets any more opportunities remains to be seen. Manuel said yesterday that Madson could return to the team tomorrow in San Francisco, although the Phillies have the ability to place him on paternity leave for a maximum of 3 days to open up a roster spot. Righthander Scott Mathieson is scheduled to join the team today, although he will not necessarily be activated.

"I'm also ready to throw in the seventh," said Lidge, whose save was his 100th since joining the Phillies in 2008. "Whatever Charlie needs me to do, I'll be happy to do. But I was glad to get in that role tonight, because it feels good for me to be in that role."

Charlie Manuel insisted yesterday he did not mean to slight starters Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain in comments he made last week after the Phillies lost two out of three games to the Giants. The manager had disputed a reporter's labeling of the young stars as "great pitchers." Manuel said yesterday much of what he said last week: that Cain and Lincecum have not pitched long enough to be considered "great."

"They are good pitchers," he said yesterday. "Great pitchers? What's a great pitcher? A great pitcher is a guy who pitches quite a few years and he's got some 20-win seasons and things like that. Lincecum, Cain, and their two lefties, [Jonathan] Sanchez and [Madison] Bumgarner, they are good pitchers. They are very good pitchers. I said that our team can hit them. Their stuff is not so overpowering and so great that we can't hit them. That's what I meant."

They'll get to prove it in a four-game series that starts today. The Phillies have lost seven of their last 10 games against the Giants, including four in last year's National League Championship Series.