Phillies lead Dodgers in Game 5 of NLCS.
Jimmy Rollins hit a leadoff homer and scored twice as the Philadelphia Phillies closed in on their first pennant in 15 years by building a 5-1 lead over the mistake-prone Los Angeles Dodgers after six innings of NL championship series Game 5 on Wednesday night.
With Philadelphia ahead 3-1 in the best-of-seven series, the Phillies moved within nine outs of a World Series appearance at Tampa Bay or Boston starting next Wednesday.
Cole Hamels scattered four singles over six innings before Manny Ramirez homered in the sixth, his fourth of the playoffs and record 28th in postseason play.
Hamels was trying to improve to 3-0 in the postseason. The left-hander beat the Dodgers 3-2 in the NLCS opener, giving up two runs and six hits over seven innings.
Philadelphia boosted its lead to 3-0 in the third with two-out RBI singles from Ryan Howard and Pat Burrell against Chad Billingsley. Dodgers shortstop Rafael Furcal committed three errors in the fifth, leading to two unearned runs against Greg Maddux.
Two of the errors came on one play, when Furcal misplayed Burrell’s grounder in the hole, then threw the ball way over catcher Russell Martin as Maddux failed to back up the play.
Maddux then walked Shane Victorino intentionally and struck out Pedro Feliz. But another run came home when Furcal handled Carlos Ruiz’s routine grounder cleanly and bounced a throw to first base that James Loney couldn’t handle. That made it 5-0.
Maddux, a 355-game winner with 30 career postseason starts, was making his third postseason relief appearance after getting edged out of the rotation by the 24-year-old Billingsley, who led the staff with a 16-10 record and 3.14 ERA.
Billingsley failed to make it out of the third inning for the second time in two NLCS starts. He gave up three runs, four hits and four walks after allowing eight runs, eight hits and three walks during an 8-5 loss in Game 2 at Philadelphia.
Rollins capped an eight-pitch at-bat in the first inning with a home run to right-center. The 2007 NL MVP also hit a leadoff homer in Philadelphia’s first-round clincher at Milwaukee. Rollins has a franchise-record 28 leadoff home runs during the regular season, including two this year.
The Phillies added a pair of runs in the third after Billingsley walked Rollins, who stole second, and Chase Utley. Billingsley, who was 6-0 with 1.60 ERA in his previous seven starts at Dodger Stadium, threw 66 pitches before he was relieved by Chan Ho Park after an intentional walk to Shane Victorino loaded the bases.
Park retired Feliz on an inning-ending grounder to shortstop.
Moments before the Dodgers took the field, one fan was shown on the video board in left-center holding up a placard proclaiming: “Not in our house,” and received a loud ovation. So much for optimism.
The only time Los Angeles had lost the clinching game of an NLCS at home was in 1985, when Jack Clark’s three-run homer off Tom Niedenfuer in Game 6 sent the St. Louis Cardinals to the World Series against Kansas City.
Two of the Dodgers’ hits came in the second before Blake DeWitt grounded into an inning-ending double play. The rookie grounded into another one in the fifth after singles by Casey Blake and Matt Kemp. Pinch-hitter Jeff Kent then struck out with a runner at third.
