By FRANK WARD
DailyPhiladelphian.com Editor

Lights Out Lidge was back. or, so we were beginning to think. Then, the man reverted to his 2009 form last night with a mental hiccup. If he’s smart, he picked up JRoll’s bar tab last night.

The Phillies, battling for their playoff lives, had a paltry 2-1 lead heading into the ninth inning. Roy Oswalt was cruising, having retired thirteen straight batters. He also had thrown 102 pitches, 78 for strikes. The man not named Cliff Lee was rolling.

Then, Charlie Manuel decided to pinch hit for him and go with Lidge. You can second guess Manuel all you want, the bottom line is Lidge’s slider appeared to be back and he is the closer. His job is to save one-run leads, even against the best team in the NL on the road.

Lidge then loaded the bases and committed a baseball sin. He balked in the tying run. Not walked. Balked.

Brad Lidge is a little miffed at himself for allowing a game-tying balk.

“It’s a bizarre thing,” Lidge told MLB.com. “The ball hit my glove as I was taking it to my glove to get my grip. It started coming out and I had to look down to get the grip otherwise the ball probably would have fallen out of my glove. By that time my momentum was taking me forward, so basically I had to step off or I would have fallen on my face.”

You know what, dude, fall on your face. Faceplant like a drunken college kid. Get laughed at but don’t balk in the tying run.

The Phillies finally pulled the game out in the 12th thanks to this play:

Words truly can’t describe the slide that Rollins made to avoid the tag and then drop down to slap the plate and give the Phillies the lead that Chad Durbin was able to hold onto.

Lidge might want to buy JRoll a watch for that.

In any event, the win gives the Phils the lead in the Wild Card race and pulls them to within two games of the faltering Braves.