Tony DeMarco

LOS ANGELES - The Philadelphia Phillies are the National League champions — and the Los Angeles Dodgers certainly aren't.

Not with their three-error top of the fifth inning, repeated failures to deliver the needed big hit, and disappearance of regular-season ace Chad Billingsley.

Not in a series when they gave away late-inning leads, and fell behind early and couldn't catch up. Not in a series when you could make the argument that pitching-change decisions contributed to the pivotal Game 4 loss.

Take away Manny Ramirez, who had eight hits and set a postseason RBI record, and there was next-to-nothing appealing about the Dodgers in this anti-climactic NLCS.

The team that streaked into the postseason and looked like world-beaters in upsetting the Chicago Cubs in the division series reverted back to the one that struggled to win 84 regular-season games in baseball's weakest division. It wasn't a pretty sight.

The television camera shot into the dugout at the start of the bottom of the fifth — with a dejected Rafael Furcal sitting alone — pretty much told it all. That was shortly after his three errors — including two on one play — led to two unearned runs off reliever Greg Maddux, effectively putting to rest any chance of a comeback.

James Loney fired another ball wildly in the inning, but wasn't charged with an error — not that it mattered except to earn more negative style points. The Dodgers never overcame a deficit of more than four runs all season — and they sure weren't going to do so on this night.

“It got a little ugly there in the middle, with the defense, but they never stopped plugging away," was all manager Joe Torre could say afterward.

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A little ugly?

Billingsley couldn't step up for the second time in this series. The tone for the entire game was set with the game's very first batter, as Jimmy Rollins' eight-pitch at-bat ended with a home run.

In the top of the third, Billingsley got himself in trouble with two walks, then gave up back-to-back RBI hits to Ryan Howard and Pat Burrell. And then Billingsley was gone after 2.2 innings — with the disastrous NLCS line of five innings pitched, 10 earned runs allowed, and no Phillies hitter thrown at in response to Russell Martin getting hit and Ramirez seeing one go behind him in Game 2.

And if you think ace status is a big burden for a 24-year-old to carry, the Phillies' Cole Hamels — also 24, and picked in the same draft as Billingsley — didn't seem to have any problems.

In fact, Hamels — the NLCS Most Valuable Player — has emerged as a postseason difference maker, going 3-0 with only four runs allowed in 22 innings over three starts, pushing his full-season record to 17-10 and his ERA under 3.00.

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The Dodgers had a chance to tie it at one in the bottom of the second, when they put two on with one out. But Hamels got Blake DeWitt to hit into a 3-6-3, inning-ending double play to kill that rally.

Much the same situation presented itself in the bottom of the fifth — when by this time, the Dodgers faced a 5-0 deficit. And believe it or not, DeWitt hit into another double play.

And finally, Hamels — after Phillies manager Charlie Manuel visited the mound but didn't make a change — sent away Jeff Kent complaining about a called-third strike in what likely was the last at-bat of his career.

“We kept skidding,'' Torre said. “We kept spinning our wheels. We couldn't get to where we wanted to go.''

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