After last night’s extra innings win over the Pirates, homer hero Ryan Howard had this to say of the need to yank the game back from the depths:

“It had the makings of that (another difficult loss),” Howard said. “But we were able to bounce back and … I was able to come through and hit the home run. But you don’t want it to become routine. You want to get it done in nine.”

I give Ryan Howard credit for saying what needs to be said. While Charlie Manuel continues to stick by Brad Lidge in an effort not to erode the last strands of his waning confidence, someone in the Phillies clubhouse needs to show some tough love to the back end of the bullpen, and maybe even a lobotomy while they are at it.

Last night, it was Ryan Madson’s turn to show us what he could do in the ninth inning, and lo and behold, another blown save.

If we can just keep Brett Myers away from bars and his 4 year old, or Cadillacs, or SUVs, or whatever else is causing him mysterious injuries, perhaps we can see this whacky season into November.

Bill Conlin has a great piece in today’s Daily News, essentially saying that Ruben needs to pull rank and require a switch at closer.

Clearly, the wagons are circling around Brad Lidge, and something needs to be done. While the Phils enjoy a nice cushion right now in the East, I’m not sure how long Charlie should use that as an excuse for keeping Brad in there. I don’t think there is any question that the Phils lead has a lot to do with Charlie’s patience. I don’t think Lidge would be warming up with 1 run leads in the ninth if the Phils were 1 game up.

One thing I do think Phillies fans should be shying away from, however, is the unnecessary rhetoric, name calling and more regarding Lidge. Everything from “Lidge sucks” to “DFA Lidge” to ” Lidge’s bobblehead has him on his knees cause he blows” to “I fucking hate you Lidge!!!!” and more. You see it in the comments on the message boards, from Phillies bloggers, commenters, twitterers and more. The ones I love the most are the johnny-come-latelys who now want to tell us how “lucky” Brad Lidge was last year, and how this is the “real” Brad Lidge. Seriously?

I think we can all agree that Brad Lidge has had an unmitigated nightmare of a season. We can all agree that the 9th inning is most likely this team’s biggest hurdle to a repeat. We can all agree that last year is over, this is a new year, and that there are no free rides for 2008′s heroes.

But at the same time, using euphemisms and putdowns that are recycled from the Adam Eaton days is completely disrespectful of a guy who has earned more than that.

Are our short-term memories really that poor? If so, go watch the top of the ninth of Game 5. Listen to Harry Kalas wax poetic about how important Lidge was to last season. Shouldn’t we treat one of last year’s heroes better than this, even as we conclude that he may not be the guy who should be dropping to his knees at the end of the 2009 season?

You wouldn’t have those World Series shirts, cups, bumper stickers, memories and more were it not for Brad Lidge. You can take that to the bank. He was as important to 2008 as any member of the team. So let’s have a little more respect for him while we poor dirt on the grave.