Phillies’ Shane Victorino has plenty to say

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Fox Sports picked the right guy to mike.

In the NLCS, the Phillies’ Shane Victorino not only showed he could be equally effective in the batter’s box or center field, but that he wouldn’t be too bad in the broadcast booth either.

Wired for the Fox ‘Sounds of the Game’ segments, Victorino responded with a lot more than the standard cliches one usually hears in these situations.

After the Dodgers’ Rafael Furcal had committed his third error of the fifth inning, it was Victorino, standing at second base, who yelled out to the opposing shortstop to ‘keep your head up.’

In the dugout, Victorino marveled over the hitting of Manny Ramirez. ‘How does Manny do it?’ Victorino said to a teammate. ‘He’s at another level.’

And when he got to first base, Victorino badgered James Loney about a pitch in Game 3 that sailed over Victorino’s head. ‘Hit me in the ribs, not the head,’ Victorino said for the umpteenth time, still unable to put the incident to rest.

Admittedly, none of this is headline news, but when you get a chattering ballplayer articulating his feelings while on the field or in the dugout, it gives viewers more of a feel of being involved in the action than all the close-ups in the world.

Best analysis: With two strikes on Ramirez in the sixth inning, Tim McCarver observed that, unlike Tony Gwynn and other great hitters of the past who would ease up and perhaps shorten their swing in that situation, Ramirez would not back off at all.

‘He gives up nothing,’ McCarver said.

Sure enough, Ramirez took a full swing and blasted a home run.

Point well taken.

Best graphic: The Fox Trax pitch simulation that clearly showed a disputed called strike on Jeff Kent to end the seventh inning was low and out of the strike zone.

Best comeback: Fox’ Chris Myers, interviewing Victorino in the wild Phillies’ locker room in the midst of a champagne shower, asked the center fielder how he thought his team would do against the Marlins.

Marlins? Right state, wrong team.

Myers corrected himself, saying he meant the Tampa Bay Rays, then added, ‘The champagne is getting to me.’

Eerie coincidence? When former Dodger Willie Davis becamed the first player to commit three errors in an inning in the postseason, the losing pitcher in that 1966 World Series game was Hall of Famer Sandy Koufax. That turned out to be the last game Koufax would ever pitch.

No one else had hit that nightmare hat trick in a postseason game until Furcal did so Wednesday night. The Dodgers pitcher this time was Greg Maddux, who, at 42, may well have pitched his last game.

-- Steve Springer