2 on 2 out in the bottom of the 9th

 

We should have seen this coming. Ultra-talented team; but something wasn't quite right all season long. Beginning in the beginning, last off season, when Amaro traded Lee (yes, we got Halladay, but we could have had both, and for all you Prognosticators and Apologists who have been trying to convince us that we need to get over it, that we are blessed with the perhaps the best pitcher in baseball, that the addition of Oswalt mid-season was the last word in the Lee debate, that we should have just forgotten what Lee did in the post-season last year, here we are packing up the red pinstripes and wondering where we went wrong, and look who's still sitting in a dugout, the Texas Rangers are in the World Series and guess who got them there with his quiet Arkansas grit and just plain stuff, guess who dominated, yeah, Cliff Lee whom we gave up for a couple "prospects" and a bad country song. 

 As with most things public and deviant, it wasn't the crime but the cover up, the Phil's nameless faceless ownership group tried to spin the two separate trades as a three player deal (i.e.: Lee for Halladay via a third team). The whole muckity-muck stunk of that Pre-Gillick dollars & cents organizational line of thinking (yes, we here at the Phorum felt the cold impervious fingers of our nefarious Philly ownership pulling away at the seams of our golden baseball, for the first time, we got an inkling of our boys mortality, the terrifying, seemingly inevitable return to our place among the mediocre and sub-mediocre). And there's Clifford, deep in the heart of Texas, still jamming and confusing and mystifying opponents at that uniquely Lee sprinters pace and we are supposed to be placated with talk of "two-year contracts and sustainability". 

You sustain brilliance with brilliance Reuben. Halladay and Oswalt were very good, but Cliff Lee was brilliant. And we got that Cliff was probably packing his back for NYC at the end of the year (He would have been a Type A Free Agent, by the way, meaning we would have received a 1^st rounder). We could rage on for hours over the whole Cliff Lee situation, but simply; Lee being shipped off to Seattle made Halladay's heralded arrival bittersweet (and later tempered the Oswalt arrival as well). It was as if the girl we were in love with left to be replaced by the girl we dreamt of before we fell in love.


The season started with Lidge on the DL. Carlos Ruiz got clunked in the head not 30 games in and went down sporadically the rest of the way. Madsen broke his toe, Polanco's elbow fell apart, Ibanez never quite hit like we knew he could (yes, despite the big July, August & September), Rollins was out for a month, Victorino shuttled in and out, Moyer went down, perhaps for the last time, Utley busted his finger and Howard blew an ankle too late in the season, and all the while, we kept waiting for these guys to be the Broadway Bashers that we've become so accustomed to, we kept waiting for The Big Piece to get hot, for Victorino to find a consistency, for Utley to find his power stroke, for Ibanez, for Jason Werth to hit in the clutch and it just never happened. The Phils were shut-out 12 times this year (including the playoffs); they scored three or fewer runs in 74 games. Despite the stats (The Phils rank in the top five in all the important offensive categories, Runs, HRs, ect) or perhaps in spite of them, you just got the sense this season Charlie couldn't quite get the reins on all that ability, the stud pitching, the offense with an all-star at every position, the air-tight and at times, flashy defense, just couldn't quite get it all going at the same time. You just got the sense that Charlie had tempted the baseball gods one too many times.  His team didn't play with the same crispness.



Ryan's last at bat of the season might well have been the karmic ending for what was a really good, but not great season. What is perhaps a little unnerving was that with 2 on and 2 out, bottom of the ninth, full count, with the path this franchise has stumbled along this past decade, a path stretching back to Bowa & Thome, Jon Leiber & David Bell in clear view, you got a sense of the future as well. In that moment, with the Bank trembling and roaring, Ryan Howard's big frame hulking over the plate, you got a sense of destiny. Win and this team stays together forever. Win and Amaro keeps trading for Halladays & Oswalts and the checkbook stays open. Win and the Fighting Phils are the first Modern Sports Era Dynasty in Philadelphia. Win and that creeping Philadelphia feeling that this has all been a fluke is gone forever.

Lose and Jason Werth looks awful expensive for a sub .200 Risp. For that guy getting picked off second base in Houston. Jimmy Rollins wheels look a little frayed, his bat a little chipped. Lose and we're another year further from the Gillick renaissance. Lose and Ryan Howard's contract becomes a black hole in payroll for 5 years. Lose and we are another year out from the enchanted island that was 2008.