PHILADELPHIA — The ultimate ace, it turned out, belonged to the St. Louis Cardinals.
Chris Carpenter tossed a three-hitter to outpitch old pal Roy Halladay and St. Louis edged the Philadelphia Phillies 1-0 Friday night in the deciding Game 5 of their NL playoff series.
The wild-card Cardinals scored in the first inning when Rafael Furcal led off with a triple and Skip Schumaker followed with a double.
And that was it.
Heavily favored Philadelphia, which featured four accomplished aces in baseball’s best rotation, never broke through against Carpenter. Ryan Howard grounded out to end the game and hurt his leg coming out of the batter’s box — he limped a couple of steps and crumpled to the ground as St. Louis started to celebrate.
Howard has a left Achilles’ injury and won’t know more about the severity of it until he has an MRI.
The Cardinals needed a monumental collapse by Atlanta in the final month and major help from the 102-win Phillies just to reach the playoffs. Now they’re heading to Milwaukee for the NL championship series starting Sunday following a stunning upset in which they beat three of Philadelphia’s four aces: Halladay, Cliff Lee and Roy Oswalt.
“Actually, I don’t know what to say,” Phillies manager Charlie Manuel said. “I just got through talking to our team, and basically when I look at it, we played 162 games, and definitely we had the best record in baseball.
“I know that we’re capable of going farther in the playoffs. Our goal was to get to the World Series. It’s been that way for two years now.”
To some, the Phillies seemed destined for the World Series because of their big arms. But in a city where the collapse of 1964 is still never too far from memory, and in a town that has endured more than its share of heartbreaks, jinxes and bad luck, a sure thing is never a sure thing.
Trailing two games to one, the Cardinals began their comeback with a win in Game 4. That night in St. Louis, a squirrel scampered across home plate as Schumaker batted in the middle innings — if the Cardinals keep winning, their fans will certainly go nuts, thanks to their “Rally Squirrel.”
Coincidentally, a squirrel was caught at Citizens Bank Park before Game 5. Not a good omen, apparently, for the Phillies.
Three of the majors’ four opening-round matchups went to a deciding Game 5, and all of them were pitching-rich thrillers. Detroit held off the New York Yankees 3-2 on Thursday night, and Milwaukee beat Arizona in 10 innings earlier Friday.
Then, the showdown between Carpenter and Halladay topped them all.
“Roy Halladay is, at this time, probably the best pitcher in the game and we were able to go out and jump ahead, which was huge,” Carpenter said.
“I think guys we’re just relaxed and having fun,” Carpenter said. “We put ourselves into position where everybody was expecting us to have no chance and we just started playing like the team we knew we were. And we were fortunate to get some help back into it with Atlanta losing and we were playing well the rest of that month.”
Carpenter was over 100 pitches when he took the mound in the ninth. He retired Chase Utley on a fly to the warning track in center and got Hunter Pence on a grounder.
Howard was next, and Carpenter got the big slugger to end a most improbable series win.
Catcher Yadier Molina threw his mask toward the mound, Carpenter turned to the left of first looking for someone to celebrate with before his teammates finally got there, led by Albert Pujols. The congregation settled at second base, as just off to the right, while Howard was carried off the field and into his dugout.
NOTES
Pujols, who can become a free agent after the season, will play at least a few more games in St. Louis. … Cole Hamels, the Phillies’ fourth ace, won Game 3. … The Phillies hadn’t played a decisive postseason game since losing Game 5 of the division series against Montreal in the strike-shortened 1981 season. They had been 3-1 in Game 5s of a series that was tied at 2. … The Cardinals’ last decisive game was in the 2006 NLCS. They beat the New York Mets and went on defeat Detroit in five games in the World Series. … Molina got his first career postseason stolen base in the fourth inning. … Schumaker left the game in the fourth because of right oblique tightness. … This was the 220th straight sellout in Philadelphia, including postseason play.
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