The pregame thought process

Rays manager Joe Maddon: "What I plan on doing is having Grant (Balfour) start the game. He's in the game. He's going to pitch the game. And after that I'm just going to have to wait and see. We have ideas. This is the fun part. . . . You look at all the potential hazards within that first inning, the fact that they're going to pinch hit. And then you go Rollins, Werth and then here comes Utley, so it's a lefthanded hitter, obviously, and he's very good. But you look at our side, also, and it's 6, 7, 8 with the pitcher having to hit fourth, and maybe you have to pinch hit, and maybe you don't have to pinch hit for him and that's an interesting call. So I'm just trying to evaluate it in advance, what's the right thing to do. And what I'd like to be able to do, I'll give you this much, is have a firm idea in advance to myself with Hick (pitching coach Jim Hickey) how we're going to work the pitching."

Phillies manager Charlie Manuel: "(Ryan) Madson will start the game for us. We've got (J.C.) Romero and Lidge, (Chad) Durbin and (Scott) Eyre, that's how we'll play it. . . . (Madson's) got experience, and a couple of years ago he was a starter. He got in like 20-some games as a starter. And like I said, he's got experience. He's been throwing the ball real good. I think from a mindset he also knows that, we just got actually three innings of baseball for our bullpen to pitch. So it's kind of a mindset thing, but I think when you look at it he's got to get three outs or four outs or whatever, five outs, whatever. However long we leave him in."

The results

Rays: Maddon elected to stick with Balfour even though the Phillies sent up Jenkins, a lefthander, to pinch hit. That didn't work well, as Jenkins smacked a leadoff double, then scored to put the Phillies up, 3-2, after a sacrifice fly and bloop single.

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Phillies: Madson struck out Dioner Navarro to open the top of the seventh, but Rocco Baldelli drilled the first pitch over the wall in left field to again tie the game, this time at 3-3.

On deck

A night of partying, fueled by 25 years of Philadelphia fan frustration, then one heck of a parade sometime in the next couple of days.

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