With Howard breaking out, the Phillies are simply the better team

Ryan Howard's two home runs in Game 4 helped put the Rays' backs against the wall. AP

PHILADELPHIA -- For a while, Phillies megastar Ryan Howard was struggling so badly that Rays pitchers were looking completely calm whenever Howard strode to the plate. And those pitchers were eating him up with a steady diet of curveballs. But the thing about Howard is that all those strikeouts can turn to home runs in no time. Even when he looks lost, he's a threat to turn a streak around, turn a game around, or in this case, send his team to the brink of their second World Series title.

Howard, who seemed almost invisible in the early part of this World Series, cranked two home runs, including a three-run shot on one of those curveballs, at exactly the right time. Howard sent Andy Sonnanstine's offering over the left field wall, and with that might have gone the realistic chances of the incredible Rays, who suddenly seem shaky. The Rays are the Story of the Year. But right now, the Phillies are the better team.

Howard's three-run home run in the fourth inning broke open a close game and sent the Phillies to a 10-2 victory (Recap | Box Score) and 3-1 series lead, putting them in excellent position to win their second World Series. It's an even better position when you consider that their ace Cole Hamels pitches tonight in the Phillies' home bandbox with a chance to wrap it up. The Rays are an amazing story but they seem to be running out of steam; they have looked lost at times here, and their Nos. 3 and 4 hitters, Carlos Pena and Evan Longoria, are still an astonishing zero for the Series (0-for-29 with 16 strikeouts).

While those two Rays stars have come up empty, it was Howard who was portrayed as a zero early in this Series. However, his high drive to left that made it 5-1 was actually his second home run of the Series. And later a long drive off reliever Trevor Miller made it 10-2. The reality is, Howard was just looking bad. But he now has three home runs in five games, including one of the biggest home runs in the history of this star-crossed franchise.

"To be able to have two home runs in the World Series, I think that's the kind of stuff you dream about as a teenager,'' Howard said.

Howard now has hit three home runs in the last two games here, but before that hadn't homered since Sept. 26 and looked overmatched on any decent curveball. Yet, he remained confident he'd get his eye and his stroke back. "I'm mortal. I bleed just like everybody else bleeds,'' Howard said. "You have your ups and downs, your good days and bad days. Unfortunately for me it started out early in the playoffs. But I think everyone would rather have me hot now.''

Howard's first homer sent the raucous crowd into delirium (they've been a little wild generally, as Ray manager Joe Maddon said his granddaughter was the target of a band of unruly mustard-packet throwers). However, the next Phillie home run is the one that had to dishearten the Rays. It came off the bat of Phillies starter Joe Blanton, a longtime American Leaguer who'd been 2-for-31 with 20 whiffs before sending one over the left field fence off Rays reliever Edwin Jackson. The last pitcher to homer in the World Series was Oakland's Ken Holtzman in 1974.

Howard's home run was a game changer, but Blanton's was a spirit lifter, a crazy occurrence that put a smile on every Phillie's face. "I almost passed out,'' Howard said with a smile.

Blanton confessed to no great strategy or skill. "I just close my eyes and swing hard in case I make contact,'' he said.

Blanton's homer was a stunner, under-rated Jayson Werth's two-run dinger in the eighth was a game ender and Howard's second -- on a fastball (the Rays finally gave up on the all-curveball theory) -- was more icing. Werth, who has emerged as a vital part of the Phillie machine, drove one out to leftfield off Rays reliever Dan Wheeler before Howard put the exclamation point on the game at Citizens Bank Park in South Philly, which is adjacent to where the Eagles won earlier in the day and the legendary rock group "The Who" played.

The Rays don't need to answer the question, "Who are You?'' as they played 176 superior games before finally hitting a wall. They know who they are, and this isn't it.

The righthander Blanton's hitting was merely an amusing sidelight to his true calling, and he dominated the Rays for much of the evening. The only question regarding Blanton was a dark smudge on the front of the bill of cap. Rays manager Joe Maddon brought to the umpires' attention in case it was Kenny Rogers' favorite foreign substance -- pine tar. "It's nothing ... it's nothing sticky,'' Blanton said, suggesting it was just dirt built up through the course of the game and season. Home-plate umpire Tom Hallion agreed, finding nothing unusual or untoward about the baseballs after scrutinizing them.

The only two runs in Blanton's 6 1/3 innings came on solo home runs by Carl Crawford and Eric Hinske, and Hinske's dinger probably carried a tinge of regret; Hinske was only added to the roster Sunday after Cliff Floyd came down with a shoulder injury. Hinske probably should have had a more prominent role with this team, especially since Rays manager Joe Maddon has employed a rotation of two limp hitters, Gabe Gross and Ben Zobrist, in rightfield.

With right field a virtual black hole and Pena and Longoria stunningly ineffective, the Phillies are outplaying the Rays, and all that kept them from dominating games earlier is a startling inability to hit in the clutch. Philly took a 1-for-31 ledger hitting with runners in scoring position into the evening, and were 3-for-41 when Howard batted in the fourth. Howard's homer turned that around, too.

"I look at Ryan Howard, he's a carrier,'' Manuel said. "And a carrier is somebody (who) can take your team and get the big hits and knock in runs, and he can put you on your back and carry you.''

Sonnanstine, who'd done a terrific job of extricating himself from jams early and was hurt on yet another missed call by the umpiring crew (Jimmy Rollins was clearly tagged out by Longoria as he dived back to third in a rundown but was called safe before the Phillies took a 1-0 lead in the first). Sonnanstine can blame himself for that one, too, as Rollins distracted Sonnanstine by breaking off the bag on a one-hopper by Howard that Sonnanstine should have turned into a 1-6-3 double play before he let Rollins out-think him.

The two home runs by the Rays give them 25 this postseason, breaking the 2002 Angels' American League record. But the Rays have let their inexperience show at times. And they've been sloppy other times. Second baseman Akinori Iwamura was charged with two errors Sunday -- though Rollins' hard grounder in the fourth was a tough play and could easily have given him a 4-for-4 day, after -- like Howard -- starting this Series slowly.

But before Howard awakened, the Series was almost a tie, separated only by Philly catcher Carlos Ruiz's 45-foot grounder that decided Game 3 at 1:47 a.m. Howard can be a differencemaker. You could see the attitude of the Rays change after Howard went deep. Earlier in the Series, they seemed to be pitching No. 3 hitter Chase Utley more carefully. But on the plate appearance after Howard's long ball, the Rays intentionally walked him after Jackson whiffed Utley, before getting Pat Burrell (another zero-for-the-Series fellow) to ground into an inning-ending double play.

With Howard and Rollins now on a roll, no amount of Rays strategy is going to suffice, anyway. The appearance of Hamels Monday night in Game 5 is yet another reason the Phillies were all smiles after Game 4.

"Cole looks for these moments. I call him Hollywood, because the lights are on, that's when he's at his best,'' Rollins said.

Turns out, that appears to be the case with many of these Phillies.