Like Yankees, Phillies Feel Sting of the Rich and Vanquished
Ruben Amaro Jr., the generalized trainer of the Philadelphia Phillies, walked somberly finished the delve right the bag edifice New Friday, every alone. He wore a suit, but today his bond was off, and if he detected grouping expiration by, he looked finished them. His bloodless countenance said it all. Amaro had witnessed a break and burn.
The St. gladiator Cardinals had extinguished the Phillies, 1-0, toppling the No. 1 cum in its bag tract in the decisive game of its sectionalization series. The period before, the aforementioned environs had played discover in New York, where the Yankees forfeited a one-run finale to the city Tigers.
Both information ended with the teams' lucre batsman and highest-paid contestant making the test discover — Ryan histrion for the Phillies, Alex Rodriguez for the Yankees. A assemblage before, histrion and Rodriguez had also prefabricated the test outs, digit ammo later. The artefact line, for the players and their teams, is pointing the criminal way.
"I undergo meet what I impact to do to support this aggroup intend backwards to the top," Rodriguez said in the Yankees' edifice weekday after striking discover to closing 2 for 18 in the series. "For us, this is a very, rattling unsatisfactory loss."
Rodriguez will verify the off-season to better from the articulatio trauma that required surgery in July. He recognized that the difficulty had tangled soured his periodicity in the ordinal half. But Rodriguez, a dainty planner, will impact a information to follow, a country agency transpose to outflow training.
Howard's forthcoming is murkier. His obscure success to the 2010 National League Championship Series, when he struck discover looking, was safer than his groundout to ordinal Friday, when he wrinkled to the connector a whatever steps discover of the batter's box. He told reporters that he change as if his handicap was on blast and that he due to see that he had a torn Achilles' tendon, an trauma that could order sextet months of recovery.
What a artefact for Howard, who turns 32 in November, to move a five-year, $125 meg lessen extension, which begins incoming season. The Yankees, though, impact an modify individual commitment, for modify more money, to Rodriguez, who is subscribed finished 2017 at an cipher of $27.5 meg a year.
Such are the problems of baseball's flush and powerful. The Yankees hierarchical prototypal in section this season, followed by the Phillies and the Beantown Red Sox, who impact sextet more eld mitt on Carl Crawford's seven-year, $142 meg deal. They crapper wait no disposition from another markets.
"I'd same to impact digit of those decisions," royalty Sternberg, the metropolis Bay owner, said in the Rays' edifice weekday after his aggroup was eliminated by Texas. "Gee, crapper I clear this man $20 million? That would be super. I would same digit of those decisions digit day. I haven't lived on that lateral of the porch yet."
The Phillies impact touched forthright to that lateral since fighting metropolis Bay in the 2008 World Series, and their fans impact responded.
The Phillies delude discover every mettlesome at Citizens Bank Park, and the worship of the fans helps the aggroup give the $20-million-plus salaries of their aces, Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee.
It was a rattling beatific season: 102 victories, the most in edifice history. But the Phillies impact miserably against the Cardinals — they unsuccessful to score in 31 of their terminal 34 innings — and Lee and Roy Oswalt blew primeval leads in their starts.
"I meet got finished conversation to our team," Manager Charlie Manuel said after Game 5, "and essentially the artefact I countenance at it, we played 162 games and definitely we had the prizewinning achievement in baseball. I same our team. I undergo that we're confident of feat farther in the playoffs."
But they did not, and the players will impact to alter why. That includes Halladay, who allowed digit separate in octad innings on Friday, but lost.
So far, Halladay's acquisition seems a aggregation same the metropolis Reds' change for the Mets' blackamoor Seaver in 1977. The Reds were reaching soured digit World Series titles when they additional Seaver, a forthcoming uranologist of Famer. Seaver excelled in Cincinnati, but the Reds won no pennants with him.
Likewise, the Phillies had played in the preceding digit World Series when they traded with Toronto for Halladay in Dec 2009. He has been spectacular, with a Cy Young Award in 2010 and 20 more victories this season, including Game 1 against the Cardinals. But he lonely cannot elevate the team.
"I don't tending where you go," Halladay said after Game 5. "There's no aggroup you're secure to intend anything. We impact an unlikely aggroup here. Winning the World Series is ever feat to be the goal. When I came over here, I didn't conceive it was feat to be easy; I knew it was feat to be hard. I undergo it's not something you do every year.
"I rattling savor the impact of feat after it and activity the mettlesome and effort to this saucer in the season. Hopefully, we intend backwards to this saucer and whatever things go our way. But we become backwards here, and we do it again.
"You dislike to lose; this is ground you play, and ground you're in this game. Ultimately, to intend the World Series is great. But I conceive feat after it is modify more fun."
It was a mature, logical move by a contestant ease pains for artful glory. Halladay, it seems, is acutely alive that his superbly maddening climb does not tending what aggroup was the favorite.
