Cory Wade (1-3) pitched two perfect innings of relief for the Dodgers, whose bullpen leads the majors with 17 wins.
Lidge converted all 41 save opportunities last year in the regular season and seven more without a miss in the postseason for the World Series champions.
But in this four-game series between the teams with the two best records in baseball, the two-time All-Star has looked more like the struggling pitcher who temporarily lost his closer's job with Houston in May 2006.
Lidge has coughed up leads in six of his 19 save attempts this season. He has a 7.27 ERA and has yielded seven home runs in 26 innings. Furcal's home run was his 85th in the majors and first as a pinch hitter.
The 41-year-old pinch-hitter Matt Stairs hit a two-run single in the seventh inning against rookie reliever Ronald Belisario to give the Phillies a 2-1 lead. Stairs hit a go-ahead two-run homer in the eighth inning of Game 4 of the NLCS against Dodgers closer Jonathan Broxton on Oct. 13.
Dodgers right-hander Hiroki Kuroda pitched two-hit ball over six innings and struck out five in his second start off the disabled list, departing after 94 pitches with a 1-0 lead that was provided by Ethier's fourth-inning homer.
Blanton allowed a run and five hits over six innings and struck out five. The Dodgers, who have the best record in baseball at 38-20 and lead the NL in batting average, runs and on-base percentage, have totaled only five runs in 41 innings against opponents' starting pitchers over their last six games.
The Phillies didn't get a hit against Kuroda until Pedro Feliz singled with one out in the fifth. The 34-year-old right-hander's biggest out came on his 96th and final pitch, when he struck out last year's major league home run and RBI leader, Ryan Howard, on a fastball high and away to strand runners at the corners.
The 2006 NL MVP is hitting just .190 lifetime against the Dodgers during the regular season with a home run and three RBIs in 121 at-bats.
Notes: On the 50th anniversary of Dodger SS Maury Wills' major league debut, the club presented him with second base when the team took the field for the Phillies' second inning. This time, he didn't have to steal it. Wills swiped 104 bases in 1962, a modern-day big league record that was broken in 1974 by Lou Brock (18) and surpassed again by Rickey Henderson in 1982 (130). ... The U.S. Postal Service in a pregame press conference behind home plate officially assigned Dodger Stadium its own Zip Code - 90090. It used to be "Los Angeles, 90012." Organist Nancy Bea Hefley, who seems to have a song for every occasion, serenaded the crowd after the first inning with a few choruses of "I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter."
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