Can Lidge back off from the ledge?

PHILADELPHIA – These days, Brad Lidge(notes) is reading about the fall of Rome. No, he’s not looking for parallels.

Lidge is a student of archeology and religious studies. Last October, even as his primary focus was putting the finishing touches on his perfect season (48 saves in 48 chances) and the Philadelphia Phillies’ World Series title, the closer was taking online courses offered by Regis University, a Jesuit school based in Denver.

He’s not enrolled this go-round, but is reading in advance of a class he intends to take this winter and a trip he’s planning to Rome with his family.

“I love that stuff,” Lidge said.

But these days, the only excavating Lidge is doing resembles a salvage operation. He’s sifting through the wreckage of a regular season gone horribly wrong, one that not only was far removed from perfection, but was historically bad, in hopes that he can unearth the secret to becoming effective again.

“It hasn’t been the year I envisioned,” Lidge said, “but the good thing is we’re back in the playoffs. “I’m hoping things end the same way as last year. If they do, I’ll say it was a great year, despite it being a rough regular season.”

Time is running short. The Phillies begin their defense of their title Wednesday at Citizens Bank Park against the Colorado Rockies in a best-of-five division series, and manager Charlie Manuel is uncertain who to give the ball to in the ninth inning.

“I hope I do get the ball, but I also know Ryan Madson(notes) can get it done, too,” said Lidge, referring to the fellow reliever a desperate Manuel turned to after Lidge’s failures became impossible to absorb indefinitely.

With a record of 0-8, 11 blown saves and a 7.21 ERA, Lidge is one of just three pitchers in big league history who did not win a game, lost eight or more games, and had an ERA of over 7. Russ Ortiz(notes) (0-8, 8.14 in 2006) and Edgar Gonzalez (0-9, 9.32 in 2004) are the others, and both were starters.

“If you want the truth,” Manuel said, “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

But Lidge has, though not to the same extremes. He was the lights-out closer for the Houston Astros in their run-up to the World Series in 2005, and armchair psychologists blamed the massive home run he gave up to Albert Pujols(notes) in a potential pennant-clinching situation in the NLCS as the trigger to his unraveling the following season, which ended with Dan Wheeler(notes) replacing him as closer.

“This game has come and gone in cycles for me,” Lidge says. “But the biggest thing for me is that as long as I’m learning from it, then things are going to be OK.

“In Houston, I had a hard time taking something out of it. I don’t feel the same way. I don’t feel the same anxiety or nervousness that I did in Houston.”

Lidge believes he has a better grasp of what has gone wrong here. He traces the origins to “tweaking” his surgically repaired right knee back in April. The ensuing inflammation and fluid buildup caused him to alter his mechanics, and after back-to-back blown saves against the Dodgers in early June, Lidge admitted that his knee was an issue and he went on the disabled list.

“I figured when I came off the DL, I’d go right back to being good,” Lidge said, “but it didn’t work out that way.

“You pitch a certain way for half a season, then go on the DL, [and] trying to get back to where you were is not an easy adjustment. I thought it would be easier, but it proved to be very difficult. Only recently, I’ve gotten my leg kick a little higher, and stayed back on the mound better, and started doing things the way I always have in my career.”

There were other problems. Lidge had grown overly dependent on his slider, and the swings and misses he used to get at pitches in the dirt weren’t there anymore. Hitters learned to lay off the sliders in the dirt and sit on those in the strize zone. By the last two months of last season, statistical analyst Ari Kaplan reports, Lidge was throwing his slider about 60 percent of the time; Lidge says he recalls throwing only four fastballs in the World Series against Tampa Bay.

Hitters noticed. And Lidge was getting whacked. Across the board, his numbers reflected it. Hittings were swinging and missing only 23 percent of the time, a career low, dropping his strikeout percentage 10 percent from the year before. Batters were hitting more line drives and home runs, and their batting average on balls in play was .363, another career high. Lidge was giving up 11 hits per nine innings and walking 5.2 per nine, more career highs, and 36 percent of those hits were going for extra bases.

“Everything bad or negative that could happen, happened,” Manuel said. “I think a lot of it is mental, but it slowly worked that way.

“His stuff is definitely still there, but sometimes I think his velocity went down from gripping the ball too tight. White-knuckle time, I call it. You can say anything you want, that it was a bad year, an off-year, but at the same time the stuff is still the same. Same fastball, same slider. I’m sure it’s frustrating as hell for him.”

Head game? Of course, Lidge said, that became part of it.

“There were times I felt extremely confident going into a game, then they’d start hitting my slider, and I know my slider shouldn’t be hit like that,” he said. “You go home sometimes, thinking I don’t know what it is, why they’re hitting it so well. You do go through battles of confidence.

“The closing role, you’ve got to feel good, you’ve got to know what your stuff is going to do, and you’ve got to get the guy out.”

Lidge said he is regaining the feel for his fastball, and throwing it more. His last outing Saturday night against the Marlins, he said, might have been the best he’s felt all year.

“Good timing,” he said, “and timing is such a big part of this game.

“Charlie was able to get me in the NL East-clinching game, and when I came out and the fans were waving white handkerchiefs and towels, it felt a lot like last year. Since then, for some reason, I’ve felt a little more locked in. I’m not saying everything is suddenly great, but you know, the postseason is an entirely new season. It almost doesn’t matter a whole lot, once you’re here, what you did in the regular season. So for me, this season can still end really well.”

But if Lidge’s travails continue, Rome could fall again.

“My confidence is still high in him,” Manuel said. “It’s a matter of him getting back in tune.

“But at the same time there are 24 other guys, and I have to think what’s the best way for us to win a game. If he’s the guy that enters my mind, then he’s going out there. If I think someone else can get there in an easier way or in a more assuring way, then he won’t be.”