Your 2011 Philadelphia Phillies

It still hurts to think about how the 2011 season came to such an abrupt halt. I can’t even fathom how it happened, really. While the Phillies did everything in their power to move on to the World Series, this postseason was a test. A test to show just how great of a team they were. Was this a team, or just bunch of guys thrown onto a 25-man roster?

How can a team with Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, Cole Hamels, Ryan Howard, Shane Victorino, Hunter Pence, and others be worse than the 2008 team? That was a real team. A team that didn’t win 102 games or feature a magnificent pitching staff (although, say what you want about Jamie Moyer, Cole Hamels, Joe Blanton, Brett Myers and Adam Eaton). But, they won it all.

This was supposed to be the year. Halladay, Lee, Roy Oswalt, Raul Ibanez, and Pence were supposed to get their rings. Sadly, there’s no way to explain what happened to this team come October. It seemed as though everyone was hitting and scoring runs. That all suddenly stopped when it really mattered.

Shane Victorino was making a run for 2011 MVP with what was arguably his best season. Well, the postseason was a different story for Shane, who went 6-19 with two RBI and just one extra base hit. It’s the same story for Hunter Pence. In the regular season as a Phillie, Pence played in 52 games, smacking 67 hits and driving home 35 runs, 11 via home run. In the NLDS, he went 4-19 with four RBI. He did not hit a ball out of the infield.

With the top of the order (Jimmy Rollins and Chase Utley) hitting, the bottom of the order didn’t even bother to show up. Placido Polanco and Carlos Ruiz went a combined 3-34 in the NLDS.

And there’s no other way I’d rather not see the season end with Ryan Howard completely tearing his left Achilles and being the final out of the season. Howard has in fact had surgery on it, and will not be expected to play for 5-6 months.

The Phillies’ GM Ruben Amaro Jr. and manager Charlie Manuel will have a lot of decisions to make this off season. Will Jimmy Rollins stay? How about Ryan Madson? Is Raul Ibanez coming back? Will Domonic Brown start the season in AAA again? We’ll see how this off season unfolds hopefully soon.