In the early hours of Thursday morning on Five, 01.22 BST to be exact, the Phillies will begin game five of the NLCS with a chance to break their franchise’s history of failure. The Phillies are, to use an American word guaranteed to bring a smile to any Brit’s face, the ‘losingest’ organization in North American sports. At the end of the ’08 regular season, their losing tally had reached an unimaginable 10,089 games. In fairness to them, that total is a product of 125 years of hard, and often desperate, work so they’ve had plenty of time to rack up such an embarrassing number. The sore point for the Phillies is that they haven’t had a great deal of success to go with those losses.Â
This year’s World Series is shaping up to be a contest between two teams who have little to no experience of what it feels like to end October on the top of the baseball world. The Tampa Bay Rays, now in the same 3-1 boat as the Phillies after their 13-4 victory over the Red Sox yesterday, have a distinct lack of flags flying in their ballpark, but then again they have only been in existence for ten years. The Phillies can’t use the same excuse. They have won the World Series just once in their 125 year history: a 4-2 triumph over the Royals (when they were a good team rather than a good/bad joke) back in 1980. Their most recent appearance in the Fall Classic came in 1993 when they were beaten by the Toronto Blue Jays in the second half of the latter’s back-to-back World Series championships (their 1992 victory came against the Braves). It’s not exactly a glittering record of achievement.
The Dodgers haven’t been frequent visitors of late to the World Series either: their last appearance came in 1988. However, they managed to win a ring against the A’s twenty years ago and they had four World Series championships to their name (one of which as the Brooklyn Dodgers) before that success.
The Dodgers already have the iconic name and the World Series rings. The Phillies want to turn a record of failure on its head.
Step one can be taken tonight. They need to win one more game to make it to the World Series and, with Cole Hamels on the mound, they could get over the NLCS finishing line at the first attempt. If the Dodgers are to stop them, or at least postpone the inevitable, Chad Billingsley is going to have to pitch much better than he did in game two.Â
After putting together such a successful regular season, Billingsley will be determined to make sure that his year doesn’t end on a sour note. Despite the fact that Dodger Stadium is known for being a pitcher’s ballpark, Billingsley actually has a better ERA on the road (3.12) than he does at Chavez Ravine (3.58) in his career so far. His performances at home have still been impressive though and history and form often take a back seat in a sudden death situation. One shut-down outing from the Dodgers’ ace could take the series back to Philadelphia where the expectant home crowd, fully aware of their team’s lack of World Series success, might just put the Phillies on edge. The Dodgers would be playing with nothing to lose and, before we know it, a game seven decider could be on the cards.
As they take the field in the early hours of Thursday U.K. time, the Phillies will be focused on avoiding that nerve-jangling scenario. They have a World Series to compete in and a losing history to overturn.
Five’s coverage begins at 01.35, so they will most likely miss the top half of the first inning.
Unless things change drastically, it looks like a Rays-Phils World Series. Obviously, Fox TV would have liked a Dodgers/Red Sox series for their TV ratings. Unfortunately for national TV, I don’t see a high rated WS. The Rays story of going from “worst to first” will generate some interest, but overall, this Series will have a very low viewer rating. Real baseball fans will watch, but the casual observer will tune it out in my opinion. I am disappointed that my White Sox were eliminated by TB. They are a very complete team and certainly good enough to win it all. The Dodgers and Red Sox are going to have to pull off some miracles to get to the Series. Who do you guys like to win it all?
I’ll be happy with a Phillies-Rays WS if that’s how it turns out. You’re right about the Dodgers and Red Sox being a bigger TV audience draw (just think of the news stories Manny’s return to Boston would have caused!), but I know I will enjoy seeing those two teams battle for the championship. The Rays have been a great story, while the Phillies have almost gone under the radar with the Mets being the ‘bigger’ team in the East and the Cubs taking all the headlines in the National League generally.
As I’ve mentioned before, my main hope for the WS is simply that we get a competitive series that goes 6 or 7 games. If I had to pick a team from the likely candidates, I think I’d go with the Rays. There’s something great about seeing an unfancied team getting one over the two AL East power houses.
It must have been disappointing to see your White Sox lose in the ALDS, but they far exceeded expectations by getting to that stage. The Tigers and the Indians contributed to their own downfalls, while the Twins put up a great fight considering the likes of Santana and Hunter left over the off-season. The White Sox came through in the end though and I’m not afraid to admit that I really didn’t see that coming prior to the season. It will be interesting to see what changes Kenny Williams makes over the winter so that the White Sox can get to October again next year.
As a British neutral, it’s got to be the Rays, just to ice the cake of winning that loaded division. However, there’s also part of me that thinks Philadelphia is a city in dire need of sporting success, and so that would be a good story too. If the Dodgers were to storm back and win it all, that would be fine by me too, but I really would be a little upset if the Red Sox pulled it off.
Yep, nothing personal against the Red Sox, but they’ve had a couple of recent titles (admitedly after an infamously long wait) so I’d like to see someone else lifting the trophy.
I was surprised to read that the Rays have shifted Scott Kazmir forward to pitch tonight. He hasn’t looked overly impressive of late. Maybe the faith Joe Maddon is showing in him will help get him out of the rut?
Here is the thing about the Phillies they were so bad for so long that it wasn’t even funny. At one point they lost 100 or more games five years in arow. In the documentary When it Was a Game Joe Garagiola told a tale about how the Phillies one had a sign on the outfield wall which advertised Life Bouy Soap. The Sign read “The Phillies use Life Bouy.” to whcih so one wrote on the sign “And they Still Stink.”