In baseball as in football, knowing when to punt can be a decisive advantage in a lengthy battle.

Neither Torre nor the Phillies' Charlie Manuel demonstrated any mastery of this concept in Sunday night's ugly affair. By the time Torre yanked Hiroki Kuroda in the second, having retired only four of the first 10 batters he faced (one on a sacrifice) and allowing five runs, Philadelphia already had a 92 percent chance to win the game. Their probability of victory reached 95 percent by the third, and moved upward from there. At this point, both managers should have been looking ahead to Game 4. Instead, they wasted precious pitches from premier hurlers, limiting their availability later in the series.