Baseball Stars with Baggage Get Fresh October Start

October baseball is about a second chance. No matter how lousy the season or depressing the numbers, October can make everything better.

Or not.

"Our game is full of negative statistics," Joe Torre was saying. "And when things go wrong, it's about whose fault it is."

Here come four familiar faces with recent blame and baggage, one for each team still standing.

In Philadelphia, Brad Lidge had turned into a ninth inning incendiary device. People booed.

In New York, when they weren't talking about Alex Rodriguez' social calendar or steroid confessions - assuming there was time left for anything else - they were talking about his habit of turning into a pumpkin in the postseason. People taunted.

In Los Angeles, the suburb of Mannywood watched Mayor Ramirez banished for 50 games, and then return with a curiously malfunctioning bat. People wondered.

In Anaheim, Vladimir Guerrero's 34 years and injury count were getting up there, while his production was going down. The teeter-totter of time. People assumed.

Did someone mention negative statistics? Lidge had his 11 blown saves, and Rodriguez his 0-for-27 postseason streak with runners on base, and Ramirez his .218 average after August, and Guerrero the lowest homers, RBI and average in 12 years.

Four accomplished players, but they all needed something.

October.

Lidge, pulling a cutter out of his suitcase, just saved two games against Colorado in a reasonable rendition of 2008, when he was as sure a thing as the seventh inning stretch. Hard to imagine a man feeling that much heat in weather that cold.

What is there to say now?

Manager Charlie Manuel: "Believe me, he'll still be as good as he ever was."

Rodriguez hit .455 with two home runs and six RBI against Minnesota - a complete U-turn from the .159 postseason average and 15 strikeouts in 44 at-bats of his previous three postseasons.

What is there to say now?

Rodriguez: "I knew I couldn't change all the 0-for-4s and 0-for-5s, and all the guys I left on base. I knew I couldn't change that so I am content right now, both on and off the field."

Ramirez helped put the final dagger in the St. Louis Cardinals with three hits and two RBI in game 3, looking again like an assassin at the plate. "I think he understands his responsibility and I think he's trying too hard," Torre said earlier in the series. "If he sits there and you ask him that question, he'll deny it."

What is there to say now?

Andre Ethier: "You're not going to hold Manny down for long. ... He's been a good hitter his whole career and I don't think that's going to stop just the last couple weeks."

With Game 3 on the line, Boston walked Torii Hunter to get to Guerrero - an inconceivable strategy a few years ago. "It didn't work," Red Sox manager Terry Francona would later correctly note. Guerrero's two-run single clinched the sweep.

What is there to say now?

Chone Figgins: "People talk about Vladdy being done. Obviously not."

One week in July usually doesn't alter the landscape that much. One week in October can mean the world. Phillies fans will no longer cross themselves when they see Lidge walking in from the bullpen. Ramirez and Rodriguez have had a transfusion of confidence, meaning more apprehension in the other dugout. Hunter has probably seen his last intentional walk ahead of Guerrero.

They all have known the highs their game can provide. They all know what heroics this month can do. Timing is everything.

In discussing the moment of truth he faced against the Red Sox, Guerrero's answer came through a translator, "He understands the importance of the situation that he had."

Rodriguez was asked if talent would shine through, sooner or later, no matter the past.

"You like to think so."

A week ago, Lidge talked of how the start of the postseason reduces an earned run average to 0.00, which means a lot when your season ERA was 7.21.

"I honestly felt that it was going to happen," he told reporters Sunday after closing out the Rockies.

He looks like a new man. They all do. It's October.