Philadelphia Phillies Bats Go Lifeless in Elimination Game to St. Louis Cardinals; 2010 All Over Again
Nothing has changed from last year. Nothing. Despite a franchise record 102 regular-season wins, the Philadelphia Phillies season ended the SAME way it did last year – an embarrassing at-bat by Ryan Howard in a game that the offense choked away.
Two runs to the San Francisco Giants last year was bad enough but a three-hit blanking at the hands of Chris Carpenter will go down as the defining moment of the 2011 Phillies season. Not the World Series championship that was supposed to come or even a National League pennant. A one-and-done in the playoffs.
I’ll dissect the loss more later but for now, a rundown of the goats and the stars for the series.
The Goats:
Ryan Howard: I wasn’t thrilled with his regular-season performance – a $125 million power hitter should hit more than 33 home runs, especially given his subpar defense, base running skills, and low walk totals – but a 2-for-19 performance in the playoffs, including making a season-ending out AGAIN is incredibly disappointing. I’m not going to bash Howard too much for an incredibly small sample size – five games in the postseason shouldn’t make or break the legacy of a man who blasted three home runs in the 2008 World Series or won the 2009 NLCS MVP (or who hit a big home run in the first game of this series). He’s a dangerous hitter, a big home run hitter, and a great guy. But in this particular postseason series – one in which he went 0-for-15 down the stretch – there is no arguing that he was a disappointment.
Placido Polanco: Remember when this guy started the All-Star Game? Oh yeah, that was just three months ago. He really didn’t deserve that and his numbers this postseason – and down the stretch this season – have me worried about the year remaining he has on his contract. Polanco was an extreme liability in the playoffs, hitting .105, including an 0-for-3 showing in the final game.
Carlos Ruiz: You want to pin today’s loss on one player? Ruiz might be your guy. He went 0-for-3 to cap off an absolutely miserable postseason (.059/.111/.059) and turned in a two-error game in the field. I don’t have game-by-game breakdowns of Ruiz’s defensive statistics but I would venture to guess he has never committed two errors in a single game, let alone the biggest game of the season.
Cliff Lee: Lee defied all expectations I had for him this year. I expected maybe 15 wins and a mid-3.00s ERA, and he turned in an incredible 2.40 mark for the season, plus six shutouts. This particular postseason though, he was a bust. Lee is hit-or-miss, and with a 4-0 lead in Game 2 (plus a 1-0 lead in the best-of-five series), he should have won the game. But he coughed it up, finishing his only playoff start with six innings pitched, 12 hits allowed, two walks, and five earned runs, actually becoming the first pitcher since 1917 to allow at least 12 hits and five runs in a postseason start.
Hunter Pence: The Phillies right fielder was a sparkplug down the stretch for the team, finishing with more wins as a member of the Phillies than for the Houston Astros. Unfortunately, he struggled in his first-ever postseason, hitting just .211 with no extra-base hits and an 0-for-4 showing in the series’ final game.
Roy Oswalt: In addition to Lee, Oswalt got rocked in his start, giving up five runs in six innings. The Phillies even gave Oswalt an early 2-0 lead to work with – more than Halladay got in his final outing – and Oswalt just gave it right back to the Cardinals, giving up a run in the first inning, two in the fourth, and two more in the sixth.
The Stars:
Roy Halladay: No one doubted that this man can pitch with the best of them, but Halladay was flat out dominant tonight. The stats (8 IP, 1 ER, 6 H, 1 BB, 7 K, 126 pitches) don’t tell the whole story: Halladay put his entire heart into the game tonight. After a horrendous first inning (triple, double, wild pitch, and the game’s lone run), Halladay settled down and the Cardinals couldn’t touch him. His only walk was unintentional. He escaped a bases-loaded, one-out jam against a pair of All-Star outfielders. And in the series, he threw 16 innings with a 2.25 ERA. That’s the stuff of an ace.
Chase Utley: This guy looked like the Chase Utley of the old, both on offense and on defense. He hit .438/.571/.688 with a pair of spectacular defensive plays in the field and seemed to each base any way possible – six hits, three walks, and a pair of hit by pitches. Never mind his subpar hitting statistics for this regular season – Utley brushed them aside and brought his A game for the playoffs.
Jimmy Rollins: Rollins is playing for a new contract, and he really helped his case with a strong postseason. He hit .450 in the five-game series (and it was at .563 until he went 0-for-4 in the final game) with six runs scored and four doubles. He put up multi-hit games in each of the first four games and scored almost 30 percent of his team’s for the series.
Cole Hamels: Hamels’ start this year in the playoffs was exactly like his entire regular season for the Phillies: overshadowed but nonetheless incredibly efficient. He threw six shutout innings, matching Cardinals pitcher Jaime Garcia inning for inning. Hamels did walk three, but he strike out eight batters, and he now has the second-best ERA of any pitcher in the history of the Division Series (minimum five starts).
Ben Francisco: Who would have thought Francisco would be one of the unsung heroes of the postseason? Following a strong April, Francisco had a miserable rest of the season, losing his starting job in right field and barely even playing down the stretch in September. He entered the postseason a .059 career hitter but came through with a huge three-run pinch-hit home run in Game 3, giving the Phillies a win in a much-needed game.
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Cody – Enjoyed reading your analysis of the game and the series. Well thought out and well presented. Thanks — Patrice Sas. I read this to my husband too.