by By DAVID MURPHY; dmurphy@phillynews.com , The Philadelphia Daily News

Instead of rejoining the team in Denver, Hamels has spent the last 3 days in Philadelphia preparing for a potential start tomorrow.

"We have a guy that's supposed to be catching him some," manager Charlie Manuel said before the start of Game 3 last night. "He's going to throw long toss and probably throw [off the mound] a little bit. He's been working out . . . There was no sense in him coming out here."

Manuel said the Phillies would have sent Hamels back to Philadelphia a day early even if he had made the trip to Colorado. The 25-year-old lefthander allowed four runs in five innings of the Phillies' 5-4 loss to the Rockies on Thursday, but Manuel said he did not pitch as poorly as his line might suggest. The first run he allowed came via a strange set of circumstances, the most crucial of which came when first baseman Ryan Howard double-clutched on a throw to second base on what should have been an easy pickoff of Carlos Gonzalez. Two more runs came courtesy of one bad pitch, a hanging curveball that Rockies catcher Yorvit Torrealba crushed for a two-run homer in the fourth inning.

Trailing 4-0 after five innings, Manuel decided to pinch-hit for Hamels in an attempt to generate some offense off Colorado righthander Aaron Cook. Hamels, who would be pitching on normal rest in Game 5, threw just 83 pitches in the outing.

In seven postseason starts, Hamels is 4-2 with a 2.70 ERA, but he has never started a potential elimination game.

"He'll be ready to pitch," Manuel said, "so that's not a problem."

Park updateThe Phillies remain hopeful that righthander Chan Ho Park, sidelined since Sept. 16 with a hamstring strain, will be able to pitch if they advance to the National League Championship Series. Park, who was injured in a 6-1 win over Washington, is currently rehabbing and throwing at the team's spring training complex in Clearwater, Fla. The return of Park, who went 2-2 with a 2.52 ERA in 38 relief appearances, could lessen the need to put starter Joe Blanton in the bullpen.

"He would have a good chance [of returning]," Manuel said. "I hear that he's doing pretty good. It's what our trainers tell me."

Bullpen mattersBefore the start of last night's game, Charlie Manuel's strategy for managing save situations remained unknown. In Game 1, the Phillies entered the seventh, eighth and ninth innings with a 5-0 lead. In Game 2, they trailed by two runs heading into the seventh and eighth and by one run in the ninth. But when Manuel sent Ryan Madson out to the mound to hold a 5-4 deficit in the ninth inning of Game 2, it was a clear indication that he looks at the righthander as his closer in a one-run game. During the bottom of the ninth, closer-in-purgatory Brad Lidge warmed up for a potential extra-innings appearance.

Manuel said yesterday he still envisions using Lidge in the back end of his bullpen.

"We want to be able to go through the seventh, eighth, ninth inning with Blanton, Madson and Lidge," Manuel said. "Might not be in that order, but you won't see [Lidge] in the seventh."

Manuel said he could use righthander Pedro Martinez in situational relief situations, but that he mostly looks at him as a pitcher who can pitch one or two innings.

Lineup mattersCharlie Manuel used the same lineup in Game 3 as he did in the first two games of the series, hitting Jayson Werth fifth and Raul Ibanez sixth. At times this season, Manuel has hit Ibanez fifth against righthanded starters. But while Ibanez entered last night 4-for-8 with four RBI in the NLDS, Manuel said he wanted to keep the veteran leftfielder at No. 6 to prevent Colorado's top lefthanded reliever, Franklin Morales, from facing Chase Utley, Ryan Howard and Ibanez in succession.

"Morales is a hard thrower, and when he comes in to pitch and he throws in the upper 90s and you've got three lefthanded hitters standing in there, he can be pretty good," Manuel said.

For more Phillies coverage and opinion, read David Murphy's blog, High Cheese, at http://go.philly.com/highcheese.

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