PHILADELPHIA - Maybe the biggest gift these Phillies have given you is the ability to take them for granted.

Sure, they will entertain and astonish, exhilarate and tease you. But they are a thrill ride where you know the track is safe and the seat belts are secure. You're going to feel your heart pound and your stomach drop, but when it's over and all is well, that's just part of the fun.

Wednesday night, the Phillies will play the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 5 of the National League Championship Series. Cole Hamels will be the starting pitcher. Win and the Phillies will go to the World Series.

Sound familiar? Except for the location, that's exactly the scenario the Phillies enjoyed on their journey to the 2008 championship. See? No worries. A year later - after the celebration in the streets, the parade, the off-season, spring training, the slow start, injuries, trades, concerns about Brad Lidge, the anticlimax of the division title - the Phillies are exactly where they were last year.

How they got to that point? OK, that's where the thrill ride comes in.

The Phillies were down to their last out, their last two strikes, Monday night. Closer Jonathan Broxton, who looks like Paul Bunyan's great-grandson, only meaner, was on the mound throwing 100-mile-an-hour heat. Jimmy Rollins, who is about the size of a midnight snack for Broxton, stood in the batter's box.

One more out and the Phillies would face something they never did during their run to a World Series title last October.

A series.

An honest-to-goodness, anything-can-happen, white-knuckles-on-the-steering-wheel postseason baseball series.

The 2008 postseason feels like a classic in these parts because the Phillies won it all. It felt tense to Philadelphia fans because it had been so long, and because recent city history - the Eagles' trips to the threshold, long but disappointing runs by the Flyers and Sixers - conditioned everyone to expect the worst.

To the rest of the universe, October 2008 was kind of a dud. The Phillies won 11 games and lost just three - one each to the Rockies, Dodgers and Rays. There were a few memorable highlights, but none of the heart-pounding, pitch-by-pitch hypertension of a truly great playoff series.

Now here was a truly dramatic moment, a great baseball showdown, the powerful redwood-waisted closer and the diminutive leadoff man. Runners on first and second after a walk and a hit batsman.

Rollins stroked a ball into the gap in left-center field and 45,000-plus calculated the physics in an instant. There was no way the Dodgers' outfielders were going to get the ball back to home plate in time. Carlos Ruiz, who took a 96-m.p.h. fastball off his elbow, is not the fastest runner on the Phillies. He was fast enough.

Chooch, who has been brilliant in this postseason, slid home as his teammates rushed from the dugout. A team facing a tied series and the prospect of its first true must-win playoff game tomorrow was suddenly ebullient.

The Phillies get three chances to win one game, three chances to defend their pennant. Better yet, they can take these Dodgers in five games, just as they did last year.

And, just like last year, Hamels gets the ball.

Win Game 5 and his 2009 regular season is forgotten. Hamels is back to being Hollywood Cole, the man who pitches with an aura around him.

You knew it all along, right? You knew because this team showed you in Denver that it doesn't matter what happens. It always believes it can win. And better than believing, it knows how to find a way.

Matt Stairs was sent to pinch-hit with one thought in mind. Hit a home run the way he did in Los Angeles last year. Tie the game with one swing. Instead, the sturdy Canadian with the body of a hockey coach (his off-season passion) patiently worked a walk.

Then Ruiz, who took a foul tip off his face mask the night before and a pitch off his fingers later in the same game, leaned into a pitch his elbow will be feeling come November.

Enter Rollins. Exit the Dodgers.

You can start to take this team for granted. The starting pitcher will be good enough. Ryan Howard will stay cool and drive in a run or two. The defense will make the good plays and the occasional great one. The bullpen, the shakiest part of the team this year, has held up surprisingly well.

It was the Rockies' closer, not Lidge, who folded up in the division series.

It was the Dodgers' closer, not Lidge, who took the loss Monday night.

The ride continues, almost surely into the World Series. All we know for sure is that the thrill isn't gone.