Carlos Ruiz and Raul Ibanez hit three-run homers as the Phillies beat the Dodgers 8-6 in Game 1 of the NLCS on Thursday. Ryan Howard also hit a two-run double and closer Brad Lidge pitched a scoreless ninth to protect a two-run lead.

Since the NLCS moved to a seven-game format in 1985, the team that takes a 1-0 lead has won 16 of 23 series, including 14 of the previous 16. In fact, eight of the 10 National League teams that took a 1-0 lead on the road have reached the World Series, including the past seven times.

Usually teams in the playoffs look to, at the very least, earn a split when they’re on the road. For Philadelphia to jump out to a 1-0 lead in the NLCS is huge, especially considering how good their bats looked.

Game 2 is set for 4:07 p.m. ET on Friday and will feature Pedro Martinez vs. Vicente Padilla. It’s kind of amazing that Martinez is back pitching in a championship series again and hopefully for the Phils’ sake, he produces some of the magic that made him a lights out pitcher in Boston.

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There are two general schools of thought when it comes to selecting relief pitchers. Some owners zero in on a stud and are willing to select one in the first couple rounds, while others don’t mind cruising the wavier wire on a regular basis during the season after they waited to address the position late in their draft.

Neither approach is bad, although each has its drawbacks. K-Rod racked up 62 saves last season, but switching clubs and leagues this year leads to some uncertainty, plus outside of saves, his ERA and WHIP numbers have been on the decline for years. If you’re the type that burns a high draft pick on a top reliever and a guy like K-Rod fizzles, you obviously would have cost yourself an opportunity to select a position player that could have given you great value at that spot.

Conversely, if you wait until the later rounds of your draft to address your stopper(s), then you run the risk of playing Russian Roulette with the position throughout the regular season, possibly costing you wins/points in not only saves, but strikeouts, ERA and WHIP as well.

If we could offer some advice, we recommend finding a happy medium between those that make finding a reliever one of their top priorities, and those who avoid it like the dentist. Find that next wave of relievers after names like Joe Nathan, Jonathan Papelbon and Mariano Rivera come off the board. Chances are you’ll get a nice combination of saves, strikeouts, ERA and WHIP without burning a high draft pick on one of the studs.

“Momentum is always as strong as your starting pitcher is the next day.â€�
- Joe Maddon

Leave it to the well-read Rays manger to come up with such a profound statement. Chances are this saying is nailed up in his teams’ clubhouse alongside others from the likes of Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre. Maddon’s right, and he’s used this pitching-first philosophy to propel his team into the ALCS.

If there’s one quality that ties each of the remaining four teams together, it’s that each of them can hit. They each have at least two big bats, lead-off men that can hit for average, and a bottom of the order that can consistently do some damage. When teams are this evenly matched at the plate, it’s often a single blunder on the part of a pitcher that can decide a game. As we’ve seen in the Division Series between the Angels and Red Sox, it comes down to the pitching. Both teams boasted fabulous rotations and excellent hitting, but it was the Red Sox middle relief and closer that really won the games.

As Philadelphia Daily News columnist Rich Hofmann noted in his piece about the Phillies’ 3-1 victory over the Brewers in Game 1 of the NLDS, ace Cole Hamels saved Philly’s poor bats with an exceptional pitching performance.

Because the truth is, the Phillies did not hit a bunch in their 3-1 win over the Brewers. They had only four hits on a rainy, dreary afternoon. All three runs were unearned, thanks to some sloppy third-inning defense by the Brewers. The Phillies’ great fear after hitting .172 in last year’s playoff series against Colorado was upon them again. They worked some counts against Milwaukee starter Yovani Gallardo and got him out of the game quickly, but they really did not hit. It was a concern last year and it is a concern this year, especially with CC Sabathia pitching Game 2 for the Brewers.

But Hamels saved them. Cool, calm, collected and with a killer change-up, Hamels had the Brewers off-stride all day. Masterful is not too strong a word. Through eight dominant innings, he allowed only two singles, one in the fifth inning and one in the sixth, and struck out nine. Only one Milwaukee runner reached second base with Hamels on the mound. Again, masterful.

What that does for a team is hard to explain. What it does for a team that didn’t hit last year in the playoffs, and sometimes struggled to score runs this year, and didn’t really hit all that much during the game, is impossible to understate.

He calmed them. He bolstered them. He was as soothing as Brad Lidge was nerve-wracking in the ninth.

With how much firepower Milwaukee has in their lineup, there has to be some concern among the Philly faithful about the lack of offense the Phillies showed today, because obviously the team won’t get a Hamels-type pitching effort every game. But the fans and team can certainly enjoy this win, which was the club’s first postseason victory since Game 5 of the 1993 World Series when the Phils beat the Toronto Blue Jays.