Joe Torre Hurt Dodgers by Yanking Derek Lowe Early

Joe Torre's most questionable decision, the one that led to all the trouble, was his removal of right-hander Derek Lowe.

Five innings, 74 pitches, Lowe was coming off his first one-two-three inning.

Yes, Lowe was working on three days of rest. Yes, the Dodgers had just taken a 3-2 lead. Yes, Torre could deplete his bullpen with a day off on Tuesday.

But in hindsight, Torre acted too soon.

Lowe's departure triggered a bullpen merry-go-round, and the Dodgers went on to lose Game Four of the National League Championship Series, 7-5, falling behind the Phillies, three games to one.

Fragile left-hander Hong-Chih Kuo, after pitching a dominant seventh, lost velocity in the eighth and gave up a leadoff single to Ryan Howard.

Rookie right-hander Cory Wade, after throwing 33 pitches the previous night, replaced Kuo and allowed a game-tying two-run homer by Shane Victorino.

Finally, righty Jonathon Broxton replaced Wade after the Dodgers had used all three of their lefty relievers and allowed a mammoth two-out, two-run shot by a left-handed pinch-hitter, Matt Stairs.

It all went back to Torre's decision to pull Lowe.

"First he was on short rest, I think that was well-documented," Torre said. "He had to work hard every inning, even though he was in the 70s pitch count-wise...it just looked like he was fighting his emotions the whole game."

Torre went on to explain that the Dodgers probably would have used Lowe for only one more inning, and maybe not even that. He had told Lowe privately that he would have gone to the bullpen the moment a runner got on base.

To which Lowe said he replied, "What if nobody gets on?"

Fair question, but Torre surely was mindful of Lowe's sixth inning meltdown in Game One, in which the pitcher blew a 2-0 lead by allowing a two-run homer by Chase Utley and solo shot by Pat Burrell.

The difference in that game is that Lowe allowed a pair of two-out hits to the Phillies' eighth and ninth hitters in the fifth, foreshadowing his problems in the sixth.

Just the opposite occurred in Game Four.

Lowe, facing the Phillies' first three hitters, cruised through the fifth, inducing groundballs by Jimmy Rollins and Jayson Werth and striking out Chase Utley.

"That was the inning I'd been looking for the whole game, an easy, 1-2-3 inning, to kind of get myself into a groove," Lowe said.

Lowe acknowledged that he was "surprised" by Torre's decision and admitted that he challenged it. But that was as far as his second-guessing went.

Surely, Lowe knows that others will do the dirty work for him.

Howard drew a leadoff walk off rookie lefty Clayton Kershaw in the sixth and scored the tying run on a wild pitch by veteran righty Chan Ho Park.

The Dodgers went back ahead by two runs in the sixth, and Kuo was brilliant in the seventh, striking out two in a perfect inning.

Torre then passed on an opportunity to pinch-hit for Kuo in the bottom half, allowing him to sacrifice runners to second and third for the second out. Pinch-hitter Matt Kemp hit a laser straight at Victorino in center, and the threat was over.

As Kuo started warming up for the eighth, Torre noticed the ball wasn't coming out of his hand the same way it had the previous inning. However, he stayed with Kuo against the left-handed hitting Howard.

"We know (Kuo) is coming back from a physical problem," Torre said. "I mean, he's had physical problems just about his whole career...He wouldn't know what it felt like not to feel something all the time."

Well, Howard's single off Kuo prompted Torre to summon Wade for the right-handed hitting Pat Burrell. Wade retired Burrell, then threw a first pitch breaking ball that Victorino, a switch-hitter batting left-handed, hammered for the game-tying homer.

Left-handed hitters had batted only .211 off Wade in the regular season, with two homers in 109 at-bats. With first-base open, some in the Dodgers' clubhouse questioned the pitch selection of Wade and catcher Russell Martin. The last thing the Dodgers wanted was for Victorino to pull the ball.

The plan was for Wade to go one inning or part of one; Torre said that was the way the pitcher had been used all season. Both Wade and Broxton were warming up as Kuo started the inning. But Broxton said he knew that the Dodgers intended Wade to enter the game first.

Kershaw, Kuo, Wade, and Broxton—all are relatively inexperienced. Broxton had never faced Stairs, whom the Phillies acquired from the Blue Jays on Aug. 30, just in time for him to be eligible for their postseason roster.

Broxton fell behind 3-1 and threw a fastball down the middle. Stairs hit the ball so far up the right-field bleachers, Phillies General Manager Pat Gillick called a reporter afterward, asking the distance.

In Torre's defense, the game might not have turned out differently if Lowe had pitched one or even two more innings. The Phillies just keep coming and coming. They've got a closer, Brad Lidge, who is 46-for-46 in save opportunities, including 5-for-5 in the postseason. The Dodgers' closer, Takashi Saito, is sidelined for this series due to an elbow problem.

It's baseball. Stuff happens.

Alas, a lot of stuff happened to the Dodgers on Monday night after Joe Torre pulled Derek Lowe.

This article was originally published on FOXSports.com.

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