Philadelphia Phillies: Golden Age Ended Faster Than Anyone Hoped

The end of this dominant era of Phillies baseball got here much sooner than anyone thought possible.

In 2008, when this Phillies team was young, they had the best young slugging first baseman in baseball, the best second baseman in baseball, the best young left-handed starter in baseball and a closer who had just concluded a 47-for-47 season finishing off wins. 

In that moment, it was not “can you believe they won?”  It was “how many do you think they’ll get?”

2009 was as special as 2008 had been, right up to the point where the Big Engine That Could met the Bigger Engine That Did. It was not as though Phillies fans could complain, anyway.  You will never forget it if you were in the building to see Jimmy Rollins’ base-clearing triple in the bottom of the ninth off Jonathan Broxton that won Game 4 and essentially finished off that NLCS. 

And there was no shame in losing to a $200 million-plus baseball monolith, the New York Yankees, a team whose best player in the Series (Hideki Matsui) was a platoon designated-hitting luxury who would shame the Kardashians, right? 

Sure, maybe the Phillies traded away their best pitcher from that World Series (Cliff Lee) for a bunch of guys who would soon be selling insurance, but still—this was the Golden Age of Phillies baseball. 

The 2010 season was spectacular. A relative waltz to the postseason and, when they got there, uber-stud Roy Halladay tossed a no-hitter in the divisional series against the Cincinnati Reds. 

Everything was going great. Right up to the point when Halladay gave up two bombs to journeyman slob Cody Ross on his way to losing Game 1 of the NLCS at home to the San Francisco Giants. 

The Phillies lost that series in six games.

Okay, but upsets like Giants-over-Phillies in the 2010 NLCS are once in a lifetime, right?.  The season ticket invoices came out for 2011, and guess what? 

Phillies fans got their woobie Lee back. He never should have left. 

What a rotation: Halladay, Lee, Hamels and Oswalt. Phillies fans had never seen a 120-win team in person, but they were fairly confident that they were about to. 

They came close, too. Only an eight-game losing streak after the division and home field throughout the playoffs had been sealed up tight kept the 2011 Phillies from winning 110 games. All there really was to worry about was whether the Milwaukee Brewers could out-slug the Phillies in a seven-game series. 

You know, once they quickly dispatched with the wild-card St. Louis Cardinals.

Walking out of Citizens Bank Park after the artist formerly known as Chris Carpenter had completely stifled the Phillies in Game 5 of the 2011 NLDS—with the Cardinals dog-piling on each other as Ryan Howard lay clutching his heel in the fetal position on the ground—Phillies fans were overcome with the sensation of what closing time felt like in college. 

The night, like so many nights before it, had been imbued with rich possibility, and informed by so many of the potent nights that had come before. 

Then, in the span of but a few hours it had come crashing down on their heads, like the rejection of would-be partners who had found better offers or just spurned theirs on principle.  All that was left was the walk of shame back to the car, for the drive home with their tails tucked away and a winter of more questions than answers. Again.

And now this.

Here are some grisly numbers from the 2012 Phillies: 37-50, 17-27 at home, 14 games out of first place in the National League East, 10 games out of the second wild-card, six teams ahead of them for that second wild-card. 

Here are some grislier numbers: $95 million and four more seasons on Ryan Howard’s deal, $72 million and three more seasons on Cliff Lee’s deal and $35 million still coming to Chase Utley ($15 million) and Roy Halladay ($20 million) in 2013. 

Of course, they do not owe Cole Hamels any more money. That is only because, as you may have heard, his contract is up at the end of this season, and he is going to get paid.  Ironically, trading Hamels for at least one blue chip bat is probably the best move the team can make now.

Even if you may have seen this coming, you still have to be stunned by how fast it all ended.

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