Wild rally gives Phillies 10-inning win

PHILADELPHIA — A team that has been searching all year for the late-inning magic that marked two straight runs to the World Series might be in the process of finding it.

Trailing by six runs and held to five hits after eight innings, the Phillies stunned Cincinnati with a wild ninth-inning, game-tying rally that featured a game-tying two-run pinch-hit homer by ex-IronPig Cody Ransom, then pulled out an improbable 9-7 win on Ryan Howard's two-run homer in the 10th inning.

Howard followed Raul Ibanez's third hit, a leadoff double, with a line-drive just over the left field wall for his 17th homer off Arthur Rhodes, capping a rally that saw the Phillies win for only the second time in 33 games when trailing after seven innings and only the fifth time in 32 games when trialing after six.



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This after Brian Schneider's 12th-inning home run gave the Phillies (45-40) a 4-3 win in the series opener Thursday night.

"We like to have fun, and the only way to really have fun is to win the game and hit the ball," Phillies manager Charlie Manuel said of his team's quest to recapture the swagger it's lost. "Hitting is fun, offense is fun. That's what it's all about. That puts a lot of life into the game, and that's kind of what our personality is like."

"The last two nights the wins that we've had have been really good, outstanding," Manuel added. "Tonight we played the game out, the last two nights."

"As far as the other games in past, we're not even looking at it," Howard said. "Right now we're just focusing on these last two nights and look forward and try to continue to grow on these two nights."

Rookie Mike Leake sailed into the ninth inning with a 7-1 lead and searching for his first career complete game. Instead, the Arizona State product, the first Red to skip over the minors in 53 years, settled for a no-decision after the Phillies rallied to force extra innings.

Ransom sent the sellout crowd of 45,029 — the vast majority of which would've been on the expressways heading home were it not for a post-game fireworks display — into a frenzy when he drilled a 1-0 pitch from Fernando Cabrera for a two-run homer that capped the six-run inning rally.

"Any time you get here it's worth it, but being able to contribute to something like this is a lot of fun," said Ransom, who was among the International Legaue leadersin homers and RBIs when he was promoted last week. "It took a lot of good at-bats to get that point. We can't tie the game down six with the first guy. We need to get on and keep the line moving."

Howard followed an leadoff double by Shane Victorino by dropping a one-out single just inside the left-field line, cutting the deficit to 7-2. Jayson Werth followed with a single through the left side, and after fouling off several 3-2 pitches from Leake, Greg Dobbs jumped on a fastball and hit it off the right field foul pole for his third home run.

Cabrera came out of the bullpen to get Schneider to fly out, but then walked pinch-hitter Ben Francisco. That brought up Ransom, who hit his eighth major-league homer and second career pinch-hit shot, a line drive shot over the out-of-town scoreboard in right center.

"I wasn't sure if it was out," Ransom said. "I hit it pretty hard but I haven't played here enough to know if it's going out."

After Ryan Madson set the Reds down in order in the top of the 10th (Victorino had to retreat to the wall to pull down Jay Bruce's long fly to center to end it), Howard followed a leadoff double by Raul Ibanez with his fourth career game-winning homer.

"I was just hoping it would at least get to the wall," Howard said.

Turns out Howard had called the win earlier during a pitching change when he told Manuel and his teammates they could still win it if they started chipping away at the Reds lead built against Joe Blanton, who struggled again by giving up 12 hits and six runs in 5 2/3 innings.

Meanwhile, the Phille

"I said we didn't have to get them all back all at once. We could just chip away and get runs here and there and get back in the game. But I guess we scored them all at once," Howard said with a laugh.

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