Silence is not golden at Citizens Bank Park as the Philadelphia Phillies go quietly

FROM THE EXPRESS TIMES

It would all too easy to say the greatest season in Philadelphia Phillies history ended with a whimper but that would imply the Phillies made any kind of noise at all Friday night.

Instead, silent bats and a crowd stunned into silence, too shocked to boo, quietly marked perhaps the most disappointing end to a Phils’ season since the Greg Luzinski-dropped-fly-ball debacle in 1977.

Because for the lack of one run, a Phillies team boasting one of the top starting rotations in history and a lineup loaded with highly-paid and much-lauded All- Stars, a team that considered anything short of the World Series a failure, has, indeed, failed.

Because the Phils couldn’t manage one lone run, because a team that won a team-record 102 regular-season games struggled to all of three hits in an elimination game, is heading for the golf course after Friday night's 1-0 St. Louis win in the decisive Game 5 of the NLDS in front of 46,530 fans, the second-largest crowd in Citizens Bank Park history.

“The hard part is all the hard work you put in, all the anticipation, all the excitement and all of a sudden it’s taken away,” said Roy Halladay, whose 126-pitch, eight-inning, six-hit effort would have been more than good enough with the slightest support. “You’re just trying to do everything you can.”

Friday’s pitchers did everything they could and a lot more.

Halladay allowed a first-inning run when Rafael Furcal hammered a fastball off the right-center field wall for a triple and Skip Schumaker ended an epic 10-pitch at-bat with an RBI double.

“They came out aggressive and that was a very good at-bat by Schumaker, he fouled off two or three really good pitches and took some balls on the edge and then I threw a terrible curve ball he hit,” Halladay said.

And that was all the Cardinals needed. St. Louis ace Chris Carpenter more than atoned for his shaky start in Game 2 with a masterpiece for all time in Game 5, a three-hit shutout with no walks to send the sizzling Cardinals into the National League Championship Series against Milwaukee.

“I went out and was able to do the things that I wasn’t able to do in Game 2 and that was get ahead in the count, control the strike zone with my fastball and use my breaking ball when I needed to,” said Carpenter, who gave up a double and a single to Shane Victorino and a single to Chase Utley.

In the end, it was the Phils’ inability to close out Game 2 -- up 4-0 at home with Cliff Lee pitching, a situation Lee was 72-0 on his career until Game 2 — that proved their doom in the series. That was where the series turned, and even the Phils’ four aces couldn’t overcome a Cardinal team with a knack for the big hit.

Halladay gave the Phillies everything he had and more in his gutsy 126- pitch night. After the first inning, Halladay, who was not pinpoint- sharp, weaved and dodged through the Cardinals’ lineup.

Halladay capped his dogged effort with an eighth-inning escape worthy of Houdini, David Copperfield and the Amazing Kreskin all together for the Cards put runners on first and second with nobody out and the heart of the order up. But Halladay, after a sensible intentional walk got Albert Pujols out of the way at the price of loading the bases, struck out Lance Berkman and got Matt Holliday to fly to left.

Rarely will better clutch pitching be on display than in that inning. And almost equally rarely will worse clutch hitting accompany such magnificent pitching.

The Phillies could come up with nothing and their efforts to make something happen fell as flat as Bambi getting stomped by Godzilla.

The decision to have Chase Utley try and steal second in the sixth inning with one out brought with it the whiff of desperation. With Hunter Pence and Ryan Howard due up, why not let your 3-4 hitters drive Utley in?

It is true that it took a perfect throw to nail Utley at second but Cardinals’ catcher Yadier Molina, who has one of the strongest arms in baseball, comes up with a lot of those.

Running Utley showed the Phils had no confidence in the heart of their lineup to produce one measly run, much less launch a big inning. How far the days have come since 2008 when every bat Manuel wrote on his lineup card seemed to have 2-for-4 with a clutch hit bursting out if it.

The same desperation applied to Ryan Howard's swinging at a 3-0 pitch to open the seventh and lofting a lazy fly to right. In that situation, baserunners are what were needed -- especially with Shane Victorino (2-for-2 at the time) up next.

Carpenter knew the significance of the moment.

“Ryan Howard flying out on a 3-0 pitch — for me as a pitcher that's an enormous play for that game,” he said.

Ball four would have been better for the Phils but Howard, who hurt his ankle on the game’s final out, was hacking all the way.

“Ryan Howard has a green light most all the time,” Phils manager Charlie Manuel said. “I can take it off and give him a take sign. But at the same time, when we’re losing 1-0 or something like that, he’s swinging if he gets a good ball to hit. But, obviously, he has to get a good ball that you can hammer.”

Carpenter battled when he had to, when the Phils interrupted their endless flows of weak grounders with something hit with authority, which wasn’t often.

Victorino, the one Phillies hitter who seemed to recognize what was on the line and played with urgency, doubled to right in the second but was stranded. Victorino’s single gave the Phils first and third in the fourth with two outs but Raul Ibanez’s home run fly-try to right fell 10 feet short.

“When I hit it, I thought I'd hit it too high,” Ibanez said. “I hit it well enough to get out but I had to hit it more on a line to get it out, and I didn't.”

The Phils had one last chance in the ninth but Utley’s 395-foot shot to straightaway center was run down by Jon Jay on the track and it was all over a few batters later.

“This is crushing,” Ibanez said. “This is very difficult. Tonight, Roy did the job well enough for us to win and we didn’t get it done. Everyone around here expected a lot more than this. But St. Louis did a better job than we did for the entire series.”

Manuel could just shake his head.

“It was two great pitchers but at the same time I would expect us to score some runs,” he said.

At least one, anyway — and for the lack of one run the Phils’ brilliant season drifts away into the what-if world of baseball oblivion.

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