Phillies' collapse capped by walk-off grand slam

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WASHINGTONRyan Madson did all the things a closer wants to do when he has a two-run lead going into the ninth inning on Friday night at Nationals Park. He says he felt good, he got ahead in the count and he got two strikes on just about every hitter.

Madson did all those things and he still lost.

The winning blow was a walk-off grand slam on a 3-2 count with two outs in the ninth inning by Ryan Zimmerman to win it for the Nationals, 8-4, but Madson had lost it long before the game-winner sailed over the left-field fence.

When a pitcher makes pitches and loses, all he can do is give the proverbial hat tip.

I was making every pitch, Madson said after coughing up his second save chance in 25 tries this season.

Following two perfect innings from relievers Brad Lidge and Antonio Bastardo, Madson was forced into an 11-pitch battle with Jayson Werth before giving up a single. Madson had the next hitter, Danny Espinosa, down 0-2 before another single dropped on the soggy outfield grass.

Thats tough, manager Charlie Manuel said. But Werth put a good at-bat. Then, all of a sudden, he's ahead of all of those hitters except for Zimmerman. Hell, he had two strikes on every one of them. Werth hit the ball good. The rest were quail hits and a ground ball in the hole. The balls found places. Those things happen.

All told, Madson threw 24 of his 38 pitches for strikes, including seven of eight first-pitch strikes.

It just wasnt my day, he said, after his ERA jumped from 2.06 to 3.25.

Facing Zimmerman with the bases loaded and a full count, Madson says there wasnt much he could do.

Its one of those things where you definitely dont want to walk a guyyou dont want to end the game on that, Madson said. So its, Here it is, if you hit it, you hit it. And most times when you challenge a guy like that hes going to get a hit. And he did that time. I tip my cap to him, hes a great hitter. They battle. They battled every at-bat, which they normally do. We played no doubles, they got a couple of bloop hits. You cant do much about it.

Said Manuel: He got in a place where he had to throw the ball over the plate and Zimmerman made him pay.

It should be noted that Madson was working for the third game in a row after not throwing a pitch for the previous six days. As a result, the closer has quickly built up a workload of 72 pitches in three days on top of nearly five hours worth of rain delays over the past two nights.

So after waiting for two hours, 22 minutes on Friday night after the game was stopped just three batters into it, Madson was in no mood to mess around with the Nats. Thats especially the case after the way Kyle Kendrick pitched for the first six innings of the game.

Suffice it to say, Kendrick did not get much time to think about Friday nights starting assignment. Chances are, the right-hander, who quietly has turned into a valuable member of the Phillies pitching staff, had only a few minutes to absorb the news that he was going to be the starting pitcher before going to the bullpen to warm up.

But if there is one thing Kendrick has learned this season, it is to always be ready for anything.

So approximately 90 minutes into the rain delay, pitching coach Rich Dubee told Kendrick he was going in for scheduled starter Roy Oswalt. Kendrick was slated to pitch in place of Cole Hamels on Saturday night after working three innings of relief on Aug. 12.

After we had the long delay, he got hot and everything and came in to sit down, Manuel said of removing Oswalt before he could throw a pitch. We've brought him back this far. We didn't want to put him in danger of going out there and loosening up. He was going to throw 50 or 60 more pitches to get loose.

Then again, Kendrick has been a veritable human yo-yo bouncing back in forth between roles as a starter and a reliever. In fact, Fridays call to duty was the sixth time such a move has been necessary, though in previous starts the right-hander has been given a few days notice ahead of time. It seemed as if Kendrick was going to get that courtesy for Saturdays game, until the stutter start.

Certainly, it was a curious decision by the Nationals to allow the game to begin at all considering the area was besieged by rain storms, flash-flood warnings and thunderstorm alerts. Up until lineup cards are exchanged, the home team decides when the game starts. However, as soon as the umpires get the lineups, they also get control of the game, too.

I was surprised they started the game, Manuel said. It hadn't rained yet, but you could tell it was going to rain. Then again, Im not a weatherman.

The forecast calls for clear skies on Saturday night

For a change.

E-mail John R. Finger at jfinger@comcastsportsnet.com.

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