Fifteen years ago, Ryan Howard and Brad Ziegler forged a friendship as teammates at Southwest Missouri State, a relationship so close that Ziegler once admitted he cried as Howard captured a championship in 2008 with the Philadelphia Phillies.
The two men have seen almost everything in baseball, and on Tuesday night, they stared at each other with the bases loaded in the ninth inning of a tie game.
Howard did not blink.
The Phillies were 0-41 when trailing after eight innings until they beat Arizona, 4-3, because Howard drew a seven-pitch walk against his old friend.
It scored the eventual winning run. The Phillies survived on a night when their pitchers faced endless trouble.
“It’s been May since we’ve done it, I think, and it was good to win, obviously,” Phillies manager Pete Mackanin said. “[Starter Jerad] Eickhoff just kept pitching himself in and out of trouble all day and he ended up with a pretty good outing.”
They won back-to-back games for the first time since May 17-18.
A Jimmy Paredes double and Andres Blanco single tied the game on four Ziegler pitches. Odubel Herrera singled and Peter Bourjos walked to load the bases for the beleaguered Howard, who discovered patience at an important time.
Jeanmar Gomez made it stand with his 21st save. Too often in recent weeks, Pete Mackanin has asked his relievers to shoulder the load. The Phillies’ young rotation has reached a breaking point. But the formula prospered Tuesday.
Jerad Eickhoff continued into the sixth, even without his best stuff and an escalating pitch count. He started Yasmany Tomas with two strikes, then three balls. Tomas fouled off a fastball. He mashed a hanging slider to tie the score at 2-2.
Phillies starters have averaged 42/3 innings in the last 20 games. The starter has pitched fewer than seven innings in 19 of the last 20 games. Jeremy Hellickson, on June 20, went seven innings. That’s it.
David Hernandez pitched for the fifth time in eight games. In his second inning of work Tuesday, he surrendered a deep seventh-inning homer to Jake Lamb to push Arizona ahead. Hernandez has an 11.88 ERA in his last seven games.
Hector Neris pitched for the 41st time in 79 games; he leads baseball in appearances. He is on pace to pitch in more games than any Phillies reliever since Kent Tekulve logged a franchise-record 90 games in 1987.
Eickhoff allowed the leadoff man to reach base six times. Two times, that batter scored. The damage should have been greater.
A Diamondbacks runner reached third base with no outs in both the fourth and fifth innings. Eickhoff stranded him each time.
In the fourth, he brushed back Arizona catcher Wellington Castillo with a fastball. Eickhoff stared at Castillo.
He threw him two curveballs after that to record a key strikeout and pitched through the bottom of the order to escape.
Eickhoff plunked Nick Ahmed to start the fifth. He moved to third on a Jean Segura single, creating yet another tense situation. But Eickhoff whiffed Michael Bourn and Paul Goldschmidt on four pitches each.
Lamb tapped a grounder to shortstop, and Eickhoff slammed his right fist into his glove.
Had the Phillies not overused their bullpen in recent weeks, that could have signaled the end of Eickhoff’s night.
He needed 91 pitches for five innings. He was not his sharpest. An inconsistent strike zone complicated matters. But Mackanin opted to extend Eickhoff into the sixth.
That is when Tomas struck.
Even with Zack Greinke out of the game after two innings because of tightness in his left side, the Phillies failed to sustain a rally until the ninth inning. Maikel Franco bashed a 400-foot solo homer in the fifth inning.
He struck out in the ninth with the bases loaded, which left it to Howard. And, without a swing, the erstwhile slugger conquered his friend.

RESULTS
Washington 5 NY Mets 0
Texas 7 NY Yankees 1
Detroit 7 Miami 5
Boston 8 Tampa Bay 2
Chicago Cubs 7 Cincinnati 2
(15 innings)
Cleveland 5 Atlanta 3
LA Dodgers 6 Milwaukee 5
Minnesota 4 White Sox 0
St. Louis 8 Kansas City 4
Toronto 14 Colorado 9
Philadelphia 4 Arizona 3
Houston 7 LA Angels 1
Baltimore 11 San Diego 7
Seattle 5 Pittsburgh 2
Oakland 13 San Francisco 11