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October 6, 2011, 6:40 pm
Seven weeks of spring training. Six months of regular season. One hundred and two wins. The best team earned run average in the majors. Eighty-one sellouts. A fifth straight National League East title.
It has been a long and remarkable season for the Phillies and now it all comes down to a few hours on Friday night.
If those few hours go smoothly, if this team pulls off another remarkable feat, the long season will continue.
If those few hours don?t go well, the disappointment will echo for weeks, months and maybe years.
?We?ve got to go out and win the game,? Charlie Manuel said Thursday afternoon at Citizens Bank Park. ?We're going to go out there and play our game and have a lot of fun. We've earned a right to get here. This is the biggest game we're going to play, and things are going to work out for us.?
Manuel is confident that his team, pushed to the brink of elimination by an upstart St. Louis Cardinals team, can win Game 5 of the NL Division Series and go on in this postseason.
The Phillies have a lot going for them in the decisive game. They are playing at home, where they were 52-29 this season, and have their top pitcher, Roy Halladay, on the mound.
But the Cardinals also have a thing or two going for them. They have their best pitcher, Chris Carpenter, on the mound. They are hot, having won 25 of their last 36 ballgames, including the postseason, and have outplayed the Phillies in the last three games of the series.
Consider:
The Phillies have an all-aces pitching staff, but the Cards have posted come-from-behind victories against two of those aces, Cliff Lee and Roy Oswalt, in Games 2 and 4, respectively. Lee and Oswalt have allowed 10 runs in 12 innings.
The Phillies scored 11 runs in the first game, but just 10 in the next three. They have scored runs in just three of the last 25 innings. Some of that has to do with the anxiousness of Phillies? hitters, some with the work of the Cardinals? pitchers. Cardinals? relievers have allowed just one run in 11 innings in the last three games.
The Cardinals are also playing with some moxie. They lost pitcher Adam Wainwright to a season-ending elbow injury in spring training. Wainwright finished third in NL Cy Young voting in 2009 and second in 2010. Losing a pitcher like that would have brought down some clubs, but the Cardinals continued to scrap behind a high-scoring offense and they?ve continued to exhibit that scrappy nature in the postseason with competitive, disciplined at-bats. The Cards? on-base percentage in the first four games is .338 and only one Phillies starter has made it through the seventh inning. The Phillies? on-base percentage is .299.
?I think at times we?ve gotten a little anxious and started chasing some balls out of the strike zone,? Manuel said.
Phillies? cleanup man Ryan Howard, who had six RBIs in his first four official at-bats of the series, is 0 for his last 11 with six strikeouts since. Howard?s difficulties have been crushing because the Phillies? top two hitters, Jimmy Rollins and Chase Utley, have been getting on base. Rollins is 9 for 16 with a walk in the series. Utley is 6 for 13 with three walks.
Howard is 2 for 9 with a homer in regular-season play against Carpenter. He had a two-run single against the right-hander in Game 2 of the series. That game was pivotal in the series. Lee could not hold an early 4-0 lead and the Cardinals were able to win despite their ace pitching poorly on three days? rest.
Carpenter will work on full rest in Game 5. He and Halladay were young major leaguers together in Toronto and remain the best of friends. Both have won Cy Young Awards. Carpenter led the NL with 237 1/3 innings pitched this season. Halladay was second at 233 2/3.
Cardinals manager Tony La Russa called the matchup of Halladay and Carpenter ?a classic.?
Halladay allowed three runs in the first inning of Game 1 then blanked the Cards for seven innings in the Phils? 11-6 win.
Deciding games are filled with pressure, but Halladay doesn?t want to put too much on himself.
?We realize it?s an important game and I?m looking forward to that,? he said Thursday. ?But at the same time, they?re all important right now.
?We know they?re a good team, but I think it's important for us to realize what we have on our side, too. We feel like we have a team that can go out and win games when we need to win games, and I think that's important for us to keep in mind.?
Never have the Phillies needed to win a game more than now.
Game 5. Friday night. Winner goes on. Loser goes home. Enough said.
E-mail Jim Salisbury at jsalisbury@comcastsportsnet.com.
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