PHILADELPHIA -- The top step and the railing of the home dugout was littered with Phillies, and the remainder of the 41,461 fans stood and cheered for Aaron Rowand's thrilling final at-bat.

Those left in the stadium got to see what they wanted, which was Rowand stroking a single to right-center field to end a four-hour, 29-minute marathon with a 6-5, 14-inning Phillies win.

So giddy was the crowd that a section danced along with Loverboy's "Working for the Weekend" -- the song that plays after Philadelphia wins. The Phillies got their weekend started by mobbing Rowand at first base.

So this is how the National League Wild Card race is going to be, huh?

"You win those, you're on cloud nine," Reds catcher David Ross said. "You lose, and it's like somebody shot your dog."

"It's huge, especially with everything that's on the line with this series, and everything that happened in this game," Phillies slugger Ryan Howard said.

Elizardo Ramirez, who is still scheduled to start on Saturday, began the 14th inning by allowing a single to David Dellucci, and then he walked Chase Utley. In a rare move, the Reds intentionally walked Howard to put the winning run 90 feet away with no outs.

"A guy with 102 RBIs this year wasn't going to beat us in the 14th inning," Reds manager Jerry Narron said.

"It's a compliment, I guess, if the coach is looking at you like that, to where they're going to walk you to load the bases and put the winning run on," Howard said. "But the competitive spirit within wants to go out there and do something."

Howard did enough apparently just by being in the lineup. Since Pat Burrell, whose triple gave the Phillies the lead in the eighth inning, was removed for defense, that brought pitcher Aaron Fultz to the plate with orders not to ground into a double play.

"How many times do you see that?" Fultz said. "This was as close to a playoff game as you can have in August, and I was up."

Fultz lined out to short, bringing up Rowand. Ramirez's first pitch whizzed inside and nearly hit him, which would've ended the game the hard way. Despite being hit 16 times this season, Rowand leaned away, as teammates in the dugout mimicked that maybe he shouldn't have tried to avoid the pitch.

"I was laughing in the batter's box," he said, showing a still fresh bruise from being hit in the ribs on Aug. 9. "I should've turned and wore it."

The win vaulted the Phillies to within two games of the Wild Card-leading Reds, and moved them closer to a pack that also includes the Diamondbacks, Padres and Astros. The Diamondbacks and Padres lost, while the Astros won.

The game went as far as it did partly because of Tom Gordon, who picked an awful time for his fourth blown save. He entered in the ninth trying to protect a one-run lead given to him by Burrell's triple. Ross worked an eight-pitch walk leading off against Gordon, and he then surrendered a one-out, go-ahead homer to Javier Valentin.

The Phillies got off the mat again with a game-tying rally in the ninth. Chris Coste fouled off two 3-2 pitches before doubling to left-center. Pinch-runner Chris Roberson went to third when Ross threw the ball into center field on a pickoff attempt, and scored on Shane Victorino's sacrifice fly.

The teams traded body blows and great defensive plays -- Victorino, Utley and Todd Hollandsworth all made stellar plays in the field -- before Philadelphia finally came out on top. The game started as a duel between Jon Lieber and Kyle Lohse, but that had become an afterthought by the time it ended.

Ultimately, the win was about a group of 25 players who haven't given up after a trading season that sent away their starting right fielder and third baseman, their No. 3 starter, and two members of their bullpen. Players said all the right things on July 31, expressing confidence that they still had the talent left for a playoff run.

Now, they're doing all the right things, in the form of quality starting pitching and well-timed rallies.

"Everybody else is mailing us in, let's go ahead and show 'em what we can do," Rowand said. "It shows the character of this team of not folding up the tent and going home. There's a lot of fight left, and it starts with [manager] Charlie [Manuel] and goes right down to the coaching staff. We're still going to play hard like we have something to prove. We all feel like we have the talent to make a run in the last month and a half.

"With the expectations off after getting rid of some of your horses, it's just go out and play. You can't blame anybody in the front office for doing what they did. We forced their hand, so now we're trying to make the best of the situation and show people that we can play than we played before. We got rid of some guys, but we have the talent on this team to win."