Dodgers' run ends in Game 5 of NLCS
Padilla struggles as Phillies ride four homers past LA

By Ken Gurnick / MLB.com

10/21/09 11:49 PM ET

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PHILADELPHIA -- The Dodgers came to town for three huge games with the Phillies and their biggest score was Springsteen tickets.

Not to knock Springsteen tickets, but for two years running the Dodgers have been shooting for real-time glory days in the promised land of a World Series, only to be sent home for the winter by the Phillies, in five games both times.

On Wednesday night it happened with a convincing 10-4 battering in Game 5 of the National League Championship Series, starter Vicente Padilla's unbeaten streak as a Dodger ending at the worst possible time -- with the series and season on the line -- as Jayson Werth slugged a pair of home runs and collected four RBIs.

Padilla, moved ahead of Clayton Kershaw for this start because he had the hot hand, was chased with no outs in the fourth inning. He had already served up early home runs to Werth (a three-run shot after walks to Chase Utley and Ryan Howard) and Pedro Feliz. He was removed after Raul Ibanez's RBI double, and the Dodgers' bullpen scrambled into emergency mode.

But it was too late. Kershaw, the announced Game 6 starter pressed into emergency relief duty, allowed a two-run homer to Shane Victorino in the sixth, Werth launched his third of the series on an 0-2 pitch from Hong-Chih Kuo in the seventh and the Dodgers could begin making vacation plans.

Andre Ethier and James Loney continued their productive postseasons with solo home runs off left-hander Cole Hamels, who beat the Dodgers twice in last year's playoffs but didn't last long enough in this game to qualify for the win. Orlando Hudson emerged from exile long enough for a pinch-homer, but there wasn't enough help from the rest of the offense, notably the right-handed hitters.

Worse, the pitching staff with the best ERA in the league went missing throughout the series. The ERA for the starters in the five games was 8.86. The Dodgers were outscored in the series, 35-15.

So, the Phillies return to the World Series, their fans turned loose to party on the streets of Philadelphia.

And the Dodgers?

The team that overcame Manny Ramirez's 50-game drug suspension to win the most regular-season games in the NL and its second consecutive NL West title, then rolled right through the favored St. Louis Cardinals in the Division Series, fell again in five games when it ran headlong into the defending champions. This time, they couldn't blame inexperience -- they just weren't good enough.

With 15 free agents -- and Ramirez no lock to exercise his $20 million option to return -- the Dodgers go back to the drawing board looking for an answer to Citizens Bank Park, where they have a five-game losing streak when the World Series is in sight. They lost both games played here in last year's NLCS.

Ethier, who led the Dodgers with 31 homers but had only six against lefties, battled and beat Hamels in an eight-pitch at-bat in the first inning, fouling off four two-strike pitches before homering to right field.

Padilla retired the first two Phillies harmlessly, then lost the strike zone and pretty soon the lead. He walked Utley and Howard, fell behind Werth, 3-0, then served up a three-run blast on a 3-2 pitch.

Loney led off the second inning with his second home run of the series, both off Hamels. But Feliz sent Padilla's first pitch of the second inning into the right-field seats and the Dodgers' bullpen went to work. Ramon Troncoso eventually relieved Padilla, couldn't put down the fourth inning, and George Sherrill did only after hitting Victorino with the bases loaded, the third batter Sherrill hit in 4 1/3 postseason innings after hitting only six in five years.

Kershaw worked into and out of a fifth-inning jam, but Victorino punished him after Jimmy Rollins was hit by a pitch, blasting his second homer of the series into the left-field seats.

The Dodgers scored in the eighth on a bases-loaded single by Matt Kemp off Ryan Madson with no outs, but Loney fouled out, Russell Martin struck out and Casey Blake grounded into a fielder's choice.

Ken Gurnick is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.