PHILADELPHIA - The Yankees blinked back their disbelief, wondering if their eyes were lying to them. Andy Pettitte had just been ambushed for three runs in the second inning, running up his pitch count to 52. The veteran lefty was sinking fast; at this rate he wouldn't even last another two innings. Even worse, Pettitte looked like he wanted no part of the Phillies or the hostility from the stands.

This was the unfolding nightmare in Game 3 of the World Series, the crossroads moment for both teams. Pettitte, a survivor of some of the Yankees' biggest October moments, was on the verge of collapse, unable to throw his cutter for a strike, afraid to throw his fastball, seemingly without weapons to counter the Phillies' powerful offense.

The National League champs were mauling Pettitte. They swung as if they had no fear of him. Indeed, only a day earlier, manager Charlie Manuel had broken with World Series protocol by casually insulting Pettitte, telling reporters, "Andy Pettitte, he's a lot like anybody else who ages - his stuff is kind of starting to dwindle down.

"I've seen him pitch on TV a lot, and I've definitely seen him pitch against our Cleveland team (where Manuel used to manage). We used to have some pretty good success against him, and I think we are ready for him."

Pettitte somehow emerged from the second inning - which included a solo home run by Jason Werth and a bases-loaded walk to Jimmy Rollins - clearly shaken. But something thing happened on the way to a meltdown similar to the one he suffered in Game 6 of the 2001 World Series.

There were two life preservers thrown his way as the Yankees went on to a stunning 8-5 victory. The first was Alex Rodriguez's two-run home run in the fourth, which cut the Phillies' lead to 3-2. The other was Pettitte's cut fastball, which, magically, inexplicably, regained its muscles in the third inning and beyond.

Once Pettitte settled down, it was if the Yankees were reborn: They wore out Cole Hamels, who after keeping the Yankees scoreless for the first three innings, allowed five runs in the next 1 1/3 innings. The 2008 World Series MVP, one of Philadelphia's heroes last October, left the mound to a cascade of boos.

Indeed, the sold-out crowd was just as shocked as the Yankees were in the early innings. They'd arrived in force at Citizens Bank Park, ready to teach the Bombers a lesson about blue-collar hostility.

When the Yankees' bus pulled up to the stadium, they were greeted by hundreds of fans who'd inundated them with shouts, epithets and the universal one-finger salutes.

This was as tough a reception as the Yankees had received all year even meaner than what they'd come to expect at Fenway. The Phillies were counting on the fans to crush the Yankees, or at the very least, make them squirm.

It looked like the plan actually might work, as Rollins led off the first inning with a sharp one-bouncer that skidded under A-Rod's glove a near clone of the ball he misplayed in the second inning of Game 2.

That was a red flag for the Yankees and the starter's gun on the crowd's taunting. Even though Pettitte wriggled out of trouble, he looked uncharacteristically uncomfortable in the next inning. That's when Werth hit a monster shot over the left-field wall, which was followed one out later by Pedro Feliz's double off the right-field wall.

Pettitte, clearly rattled now, walked Carlos Ruiz and then loaded the bases when he was unable to field Hamels' sacrifice bunt. The walk to Rollins forced home a run, and the Phillies stretched their lead to 3-0 when Shane Victorino hit a long sacrifice fly to left.

All this brought to mind Pettitte's last road game in the World Series Game 6 of the '01 Classic against the Diamondbacks. The final score 15-2 hardly captured Pettitte's ineffectiveness that night. He'd allowed six runs and seven hits in just two innings, and was so distraught, it took him into the following spring to recover. Nothing made sense about that pummeling, considering he'd pitched so well in Game 2, scattering four runs in seven innings.

But four days later, it was as if Pettitte were different pitcher or, more accurately, the Diamondbacks had X-ray vision, able to see the ball in Pettitte's glove, knowing what pitch was coming. Turns out that wasn't far from the truth, as Pettitte would later discover he'd been tipping his famed cut fastball.

"I kept saying to myself, 'Something's not right here,'" Pettitte would say the following February. "I mean, I had really good stuff that night, same stuff as I had in (Game 2). But they were sitting on everything I threw. I felt terrible, awful, because I had a chance to close out the Series and I didn't get it done."

Pettitte's suspicions were confirmed the very next night, when Todd Stottlemyre, a Diamondbacks' right-hander, told his father, Mel, the Yankees' pitching coach, that they'd cracked the code on Pettitte's windup. The elder Stottlemyre took the nugget from his son and went right to the video room. There, in front of his eyes, were the mechanical giveaways that ruined the Yankees.

"It was very obvious to me, and it was something that's been easily fixed. I just feel bad that I didn't see it that night," Stottlemyre said at the time. "I almost didn't want to tell Andy what I'd seen in the tapes, because he was already feeling pretty bad about the way the game had gone. But it's something I felt he should know about."

Pettitte preserved that memory, vowing never to let it happen again in October. The Phillies made him sweat, maybe even panic for a brief stretch. But Pettitte survived, and now the Yankees are within hailing distance of a world championship.