It's do or bye for Phillies in NLDS

ST. LOUIS - Thirty years ago next week, the Phillies played their most recent decisive playoff game in franchise history. On the mound was Steve Carlton, defending NL Cy Young Award winner, future Hall of Famer. It was Game 5 of the National League Division Series, which was added to the postseason on a one-time basis because of a strike that had chopped the regular season in half. Carlton pitched eight innings, but the Phillies could only manage six hits, and Steve Rogers pitched a complete-game shutout while leading the Montreal Expos to a 3-0 win at Veterans Stadium.

The game has changed a lot over the last 3 decades, but the stakes remain the same: win and move on, lose and go home. Tomorrow night, the Phillies will do one of the two, thanks to yesterday's 5-3 loss to the Cardinals at Busch Stadium.

All of it - the promise of spring training, the record-setting 102 victories in the regular season, the streak of three straight National League Championship Series - comes down to one lonely game. Roy Halladay, the Phillies' ace and the defending NL Cy Young winner, against Chris Carpenter, Halladay's longtime friend who finished a couple of spots behind him in last year's voting.

"Might be fitting that it's going down to a fifth game," manager Charlie Manuel said. "We're a good team, they're a good team. We've been in close games all year long. It's up to us to go get it. It's sitting right there for us. We've got our ace going, and we're at home, and so everything is sitting right there - and basically that's why we worked like hell to get the homefield advantage. It's evened up, and we'll go from there. I feel very confident. I feel like we've got to take it to them. If we don't get it, it's our fault."

Last night marked the first time since the 2008 NLDS that the Phillies failed to clinch a playoff series in their first opportunity to do so. When Ben Francisco crushed a three-run homer in the seventh inning of Game 3 and the bullpen wiggled out of three straight jams to take a 2-1 lead in this best-of-five NLDS, it felt as if the Phils had delivered a crushing blow. But last night, the Cardinals climbed off the canvas, thanks to two bad Roy Oswalt pitches and one metro-St.-Louis native who happened to be on the receiving end of both. David Freese, a 28-year-old third baseman who attended high school just 45 minutes from Busch Stadium, hit a two-run double in the fourth inning to give the Cardinals a 3-2 lead then followed it with a two-run homer in the sixth.

"Two pitches," said Oswalt, who had pitched seven scoreless innings against the Cardinals just 2 weeks ago. "I thought I had pretty good stuff. They got five hits . . . All you can do is throw strikes and try to get quality pitches. For the most part, I did. Even the home run. I went back and looked at it, and it was a pretty good pitch. To hit it out to center, it was a pretty good swing."

Oswalt's only other run came in the first, after the Phillies had taken a quick 2-0 lead off Cardinals righthander Edwin Jackson. On Tuesday night in Game 3, St. Louis was the team left to rue its missed opportunities. Last night, it was the Phillies. They had a 2-0 lead before they made their first out of the game, thanks to a double by Jimmy Rollins, a triple by Chase Utley and a single by Hunter Pence.

But just like Game 2, when they had to settle for three runs in a first inning that looked like it could have produced so much more, the Phillies failed to deliver a knockout punch. With Pence running on a 3-2 pitch, Ryan Howard struck out then watched catcher Yadier Molina throw a strike to second for the doubleplay. Replays suggested that Pence was safe, but nothing about the Phillies offense suggested he would have been driven home.

Jackson retired 13 of the next 15 batters he faced as the Phillies appeared at times to try too hard to force the issue. The most obvious - and most detrimental - came in the sixth inning, when Utley attempted to take an extra base on what looked to be a groundout by Pence. Utley had been running on the play, so he was rounding second as shortstop Rafael Furcal released to the throw to first after fielding a tough hop. But Albert Pujols saw what was happening and left the bag to grab the throw, then fired a dart to third, where Utley could only slide hard into Freese's lower half and attempt to knock the ball loose.

Pence appeared to have a chance at beating out the throw even if Utley would have held, which would have put runners at first and second with nobody out and Howard at the plate.

"He made a heads up play," Pence said of the play by Pujols. "He's kind of got some of those intangibles. I think that was a great idea by Utley. Most of the time he's going to be safe."