PHILADELPHIA
The Four Aces were trumped here on Friday night by a pack of face Cards. In the annals of upsets, this 1-0 St. Louis win over Philadelphia to capture their National League Division Series will stand high for coast-to-coast incredulity.
- Thomas Boswell
- Columnist
NLDS Game 5: Cardinals vs. Phillies is further evidence of crushing pressure on MLB favorites
But, in a broader sense, this ruthlessly tense Game 5, with Chris Carpenter outdueling his buddy Roy Halladay, epitomizes the forces of astronomical expectation and crushing pressure that have led to spectacular collapses all over baseball in the last fortnight. We haven’t had a Fall Classic yet, but we have just seen the baseball season with the most classic falls.
The louder the home crowd cheers, the more they wave their white towels, the more astronomically high the universal anticipation becomes that something will be accomplished that has rarely been seen, the harder it becomes to play the apparently straightforward game of baseball.
For the past two weeks, we’ve watched as the panic attacks have reached an apex among baseball’s three most glamorous, talented and rich teams.
It’s been gruesome but fascinating, cruel yet riveting. Only baseball brings public torture of the mighty to such a sustained excruciating pitch.
First, Red Sox choke! But at least they brought it on themselves for a whole month. Then the Yankees choked on Thursday night in the Big Ballpark. But they’ve gotten old, their pitching’s thin and, for a decade, they’ve mastered the division series flop, executing that dive five times.
But the Phillies, no, not the Aces, too. Can’t happen, won’t happen.
It happened. Right down to slugger Ryan Howard, 2 for 20 in this series, lying crumpled in the dirt at home plate, grabbing his leg, a symbol of pain, disbelief and failure, as his final weak groundball ended the Phils’ year.
Now, almost unbelievably, in a defeat so narrow and harsh that it seems no team could merit it, the Phillies — with Halladay on the mound for eight superb innings while Cliff Lee, Cole Hamels and Roy Oswalt watched — have been knocked out of the baseball postseason in the very first round.
Left atop the hill was not one of those Aces, but the Cardinals’ ace, Carpenter, who allowed three hits in a 110-pitch shutout that stands with the best postseason games ever pitched. Only two other postseason 1-0, winner-take-all games have ever been pitched, to end the ’62 and ’91 World Series. He’s done it before on a grand stage, with eight scoreless innings on three hits in his only start in the 2006 World Series that the 83-win Cards won.
The loser was his career-long buddy, right down to vacations together and mutual in-depth study of pitching theory, the luckless Halladay, who allowed a triple and double to the first two batters he faced, then blanked the Cards. Too late. When the pressure grabs you, one run can be enough.
Oh, the Phillies — don’t dare mock them — came close, so close. A 400-foot Chase Utley blast to lead off the ninth inning died in front of the center field fence 401 feet away. Superb defense by the Cards, especially nimble shortstop Rafael Furcal, thwarted potential rallies. However, the harsh truth is that the Phils got only one man past second base and he died at third when a Raul Ibanez flyball to right died on the warning track. “This is a small ballpark. I was thinking, ‘Please stay in,’ ” Carpenter said.
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