PHILADELPHIA - The same fans who can make Citizens Bank Park a living hell for their own players or turn it into baseball's best home-field advantage were fast asleep.

A first-inning dose of Manny being Manny — there's a new meaning to that slogan in Los Angeles — acted as the sedative, then Derek Lowe's steady diet of low sinkers were the tranquilizer.

As Game 1 of Thursday night’s National League Championship Series moved along at a steady pace, the Los Angeles Dodgers had an early lead and Phillies fans were transformed into a quiet bunch that resembled those late-arriving, early leaving crowds that have filled Dodger Stadium for decades.

Philadelphia sports fans have earned a lot of bad names they’ve been called. They threw snowballs at Santa Claus, booed Mike Schmidt his whole career and, with few exceptions, have turned on every ballplayer who's played in the City of Brotherly Love for many years.

But in good times and bad, these fans are passionate. As 2007 NL MVP Jimmy Rollins correctly said during his controversial August television interview, "They're frontrunners."

Eventually, Thursday night, the crowd helped the Phillies front-run their way to a 3-2 comeback victory that brought with it a 1-0 series lead in this best-of-seven battle for the NL pennant.

All it took was a wakeup call that came after Shane Victorino started the Phillies sixth by hitting a routine groundball to shortstop. A speedster, Victorino high-tailed it to first and Dodgers shortstop Rafael Furcal rushed a throw that didn't need to be rushed.

The end result was like Scott Norwood's botched game-winning field goal attempt in Super Bowl XXV — high enough, long enough, but wide.

Down 2-0, the Phillies had more than a leadoff runner on second base in a game they trailed since Manny Ramirez's first-inning RBI double off Cole Hamels.

Finally, the Phillies sellout crowd — 45,839 strong — had its wakeup call. Furcal's miscue put them into a frenzy. They were on their feet, waving their white towels and letting the Dodgers know what it can be like to play in Philly.

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Dodgers manager Joe Torre had no worries that Lowe, who had been 5-0 in postseason play since 2004, would lose his poise, none until Chase Utley stepped in the batter's box and jumped on the right-hander's first offering, an 80-mph fastball.

A .154 hitter with no homers over his first seven career playoff games, Utley showed why he's the game's best second baseman by towering a flyball to right field that carried and carried and carried ... all the way into the seats.

Tie game.

Not for long.

With the crowd still cheering as if the final seconds were ticking off to a Super Bowl victory the city has never had, Lowe settled down long enough to retire Ryan Howard on a groundball to first base for the first out of the inning.

But then Pat Burrell stepped to the plate and it was bombs away again. Once again, Lowe was victimized by a fastball, this one a 90-mph heater that went flying out to left field faster than it came in, a low liner that just had enough to make it over the wall in this hitter-friendly yard and into the first row.

Just like that, the Phillies had a 3-2 lead.

The Dodgers might as well have packed up and left right then and there with Citizens Bank Park freakishly loud and shaking like Cape Canaveral after a rocket launching.

Fueled by their rowdy fans, the Phillies weren't letting the Dodgers tie it, even though they had nine big outs to go. In Philadelphia this year, a late-inning lead is money in the bank.

Suddenly working with a lead, Hamels finished his superb two-run, seven-inning outing with a 1-2-3 seventh, then the Phillies unleashed their hot 1-2 bullpen punch on the Dodgers.

Everyone knows about closer Brad Lidge, but lanky righty Ryan Madson has been pretty spectacular in the second half as his setup man, and Game 1 was no different. Facing the meat of the Dodgers' lineup, Madson pitched around a one-out single in a scoreless eighth that included Ramirez lining to third base for the second out.

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