Tied 2-2 for nearly 48 hours, the Philadelphia Phillies came out swinging as the first suspended game in World Series history resumed.  The Phillies scored first and last and closer Brad Lidge remained perfect for the season to close out a 4-3 win and bring Philadelphia their first sports championship since 1983 and first baseball championship since 1980.

Roughly 44,000 of the 45,940 fans returned to witness history at Citizens Bank Park as the Phillies clinched their second World Series title in the franchise’s 126 years.

It wasn’t easy.  In an exciting 3-1/2 innings, Game 5, Part Two went the Phillies’ way early.  In the bottom of the sixth, pinch hitter Geoff Jenkins led-off the action with a double.  Jimmy Rollins moved Jenkins over with a bunt and Jayson Werth singled on a nearly fielded pop-up by Akinori Iwamura to give the Phillies a 3-2 lead.

With Ryan Madson on in relief of Cole Hamels — the eventual World Series MVP — Tampa Bay’s Rocco Baldelli hit a solo blast with one out in the top of the seventh to even the game back up at 3-3.  After a Jason Bartlett single and a J.P. Howell sacrifice bunt, J.C. Romero relieved Madson.  Iwamura hit a grounder up the middle that was fielded by Chase Utley.  With two outs, Bartlett rounded third and headed home and Utley alertly made the play at home instead of first and a great tag by Carlos Ruiz ended the threat and kept the game even at three apiece.

In the bottom of the seventh, Pat Burrell led off the inning with his first and only hit of the World Series.  Burrell smashed a shot to one of the deepest parts of Citizens Bank Park and rolled into second with a double.  Burrell was removed for a pinch runner — Eric Bruntlett — and although Shane Victorino’s bunt attempts failed, he was able to move Bruntlett to third.  With one out, Pedro Feliz singled home Bruntlett to give the Phillies a 4-3 lead.

The Phillies bullpen did the rest.  Romero stayed in and retired the heart of the Rays’ order with the help of a ground ball double play off the bat of B.J. Upton and got Carlos Pena to fly out to left.  Then, the game was handed over to Lidge.  Lidge — perfect during the regular and postseason on 47 save opportunities — extended his perfect season and ended the game with a strikeout of pinch hitter Eric Hinske to clinch the win.

Hamels was named the World Series MVP and went 1-0 with a 2.77 ERA in two World Series starts.  He won Game 1 and allowed two earned runs in six innings in Game 5 but his outing was shortened by the rain-induced suspension. 

NOTES:  The ‘08 Phillies are only the second team to win all of their postseason home games since postseason play moved to three rounds.  These Philies joined the ‘99 Yankees as the only other team to go perfect at home through three rounds of the postseason.  The only other club to win at least six home games without a loss in the postseason was the ‘87 Twins… The National League has now won two out of the last three World Series but is still behind with just 43 titles to the American League’s 61… The home run by Baldelli was the first off of Ryan Madson since August 28th and the first he allowed at Citizens Bank Park since April… J.C. Romero recorded the win — his second of the World Series — and did not allow a run in 7-1/3 innings of work… The team who scored the first run won and all of those runs came in the first inning.  It was only the second time in World Series history that the first five games in the Series featured a run in the first inning.  The last time was in ‘03.

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PHILLIES THREE KEYS

• The Manuel Manual

Manager Charlie Manuel stuck to his decision-making philosophy and picked the right pinch hitter in Geoff Jenkins in the bottom of the sixth.  Ryan Madson/J.C. Romero to Brad Lidge has been the recipe for success all year and it worked again in the Series clincher.

• Hold Serve at Home

Philadelphia finished the postseason 7-0 at home including 3-0 against the Rays in the World Series.

• Myers and Moyer

The excellent pitching performance by Jamie Moyer in Game 3 was a major game-changer.  Although Moyer didn’t win the game, the Phillies did and stole a game from Matt Garza and the Rays.  The story grew to legend when it was revealed that Moyer pitched with a stomach virus that had him bedridden the day before.  To cap it off, Moyer dug up and took the mound during the postgame celebration.

RAYS THREE KEYS

• Minimize the Phillies “Big Innings”

Give credit to the Rays here.  They did a good job of keeping crooked numbers off of the scoreboard.  Although the Phillies did put up two in the first inning of this game — in case you forgot — they only added two more one-run innings in the game but that was enough.

• Choose the Right Closer

Manager Joe Maddon let J.P. Howell bat so he could face Pat Burrell.  Burrell pounded a double off of Howell and the move failed.  Those into second-guessing can point to that moment right there as the perfect second-guess opportunity.

• Avoid Fielding Mistakes

Overall, the Rays did not play good defense in the Series and never seemed to make the big play although Akinori Iwamura made a great defensive play on a Carlos Ruiz grounder to keep the game at one run. 

…According to a report in the New York Post, the Milwaukee Brewers will be listening to trade offers for All-Star first baseman Prince Fielder. He’s still under team control for three years but is due a pretty big payday as he goes through the arbitration process for the first time in his career. [New York Post]

…Former Cleveland Indians and New York Yankees scout Jim Benedict has been hired by the Pittsburgh Pirates as a special assistant to Neal Huntington.[Yahoo]

…Troy Renck of the Denver Post is reporting that former Colorado Rockies second baseman Jason Nix (who also spent time on Team USA at the Summer Games) has signed a deal with the Chicago White Sox. [Denver Post]

…The Oakland A’s had two go under the knife in recent days. First Baseman Daric Barton had surgery on his right hip while pitcher Greg Smith had his elbow cleaned up. [CBS]

…New York Yankees General Manager Brian Cashman finally spoke out about pitcher Joba Chamberlain’s recent DUI arrest in Nebraska. [MLB]

“He made a mistake,” Cashman said on Tuesday evening. “He apologized for it. Thank [goodness], no one was hurt, because it’s a very serious issue. And I hope that’s the end of it.”

“He’s part of our family,” Cashman said. “We’re going to support him, but at the same time, he knows that stuff like this can’t happen.”

…According to a report on ESPN.com the Chicago White Sox will not seek to resign Ken Griffey Junior. Griffey was a late season trade piece and played 41 games for the White Sox after coming over in a trade with the Cincinnati Reds. [ESPN]

It’s hard to defend this year’s chosen crew of umpires for the 2008 World Series.  They’ve been terrible.  The only good news is that they’ve been horrible both ways.  In Game 1, there was the non-balk call on Cole Hamels and  close call on a pick-off that had Rays’ fans up in arms.  In Game 2, the Philly faithful were outraged by an odd call on a check swing and a ninth inning rally squashed when a pitch that hit Jimmy Rollins was called a ball and not a hit batsman followed by a Rollins’ out and a Rays’ win.  In Game 3, the venom of Philadelphia was tempered by a win after a missed call on an amazing play by Jamie Moyer on a Carl Crawford bunt was incorrectly called a single instead of an out and played a huge role in the Rays’ comeback.  In Game 4, the bad call came early when Evan Longoria tagged out Rollins in a rundown but the easy call was blown at third and Rollins was called safe.  If the outcome was closer than 10-2, this one would have been a much bigger story. 

Finally, there was Game 5.  Here, both sides were angry by the umpire’s judgment.  The bigger of the two issues was the crew’s decision to allow the game to go beyond the top of the fifth inning when the Citizens Bank Park infield resembled a south Philly swimming hole and gave new meaning to the baseball slang “ducks on the pond.”  During the torrential downpour that had even the most die-hard fans at the Bank scrambling for cover, the Rays were able to swim home a run to tie the game at two and give the umpires a perfect opportunity to hit pause on the baseball remote.  The crew spoke of fairness after the game was suspended but consider this game was to decide a World Series and no regular season game would ever be played under the same conditions and fairness is truly in the eye of the beholder.

The other issue was the strike zone.  Thanks to the gravity of the game, the PITCHf/x technology baseball uses gives every fan the opportunity to scrutinize the home plate umpire on every pitch.  During the regular season, the same technology is available but depending on the network the fan is viewing the game or their ‘net savvy, it is typical that balls and strikes are not as scrutinized.  At the very least, the scrutiny is not to the certainty that many have when arguing balls and strikes.

The big at-bat in question was a Pat Burrell walk against Scott Kazmir.  The at-bat was disputed here and here and commented on by many other baseball writers and Rays’ fans.  Thanks to Brooks Baseball’s use of PITCHf/x technology to understand pitching performances, there is also the ability to look at if a pitcher is being squeezed or not.  Here’s a quick look at all of the ball and strike calls from Game 5:

And here’s a closer look:

Remember that “RED” represents a called strike and “GREEN” represents a called ball and pitches thrown by Tampa Bay pitchers are represented by squares and pitches thrown by Philadelphia pitchers are represented by triangles.  A quick tally shows that Tampa Bay pitchers were squeezed out of six strikes that were called balls and got the benefit of four balls that were called strikes.  Philadelphia pitchers were only squeezed out of three strikes that were called balls and got the benefit of two balls that were called strikes.  Not a major difference but in the disputed Burrell at-bat where the pitches were close to the bottom of the strike zone, according to this visual, they were strikes and Burrell shouldn’t have walked.

That is, if you take PITCHf/x as 100% accurate.  Unfortunately, this isn’t the case.  Even the company that sells the technology, Sportvision, doesn’t claim the technology is 100% accurate.  Sportvision claims the technology tracks the pitch within a half-inch to the actual location.  Others have claimed the pitches are within an inch of their actual location.  The technology is imperfect but pretty damn good.  However, introducing an inch of doubt to the Brooks Baseball graphic really casts a shadow of doubt to the claims that umpire Jeff Kellogg was horrible behind the plate and it also casts a bigger shadow of doubt on which team actually benefited from the poor calls behind the dish.

Here are the same graphics with a yellow box added to represent the possible inch of inaccuracy that is willingly accepted by those who faithfully support PITCHf/x:

And here is the zoom:

Eliminating all pitches that touch the yellow area of “reasonable doubt”, now it looks like only two of those strikes the Rays were squeezed out of were definitely strikes.  A quick recalculation after those pitches are eliminated shows that Rays’ pitchers benefitted from an unearned strike compared to the Phillies who lost three strikes and picked up only two for a net of one lost strike. 

In conclusion, there’s been plenty of evidence to condemn the umpiring crew of this World Series.  But it is a little unfair to condemn Jeff Kellogg for his calls behind the plate especially if the argument is that the Rays were the victims.  On the calls that were clear-cut, the Rays were the beneficiary.  Often when disputing balls and strikes, called third strikes and fourth balls are magnified because they clearly result in an out or a walk.  However, even the average baseball viewer understands the magnitude an incorrect call on any pitch has a huge effect.  No one wants to walk a batter on a strike but no one wants their batter to face an 0-2 count when it should be 1-1, either.  And often that goes without the same criticism because of the more implicit result of a called third strike or fourth ball. 

More importantly, while PITCHf/x is an amazing tool and great way to look at pitchers and umpires, those familiar with the technology know it isn’t perfect so those using it as their basis to be angry over the outcome of a game because they disagreed with a call need to consider the technology’s imperfections, too.

Just like we did last year, I have uploaded and attached the new Top Prospects Compilation file to this blog posting. It will remain here and be updated as new lists appear across the web. Prospect rankings from Baseball America, BP’s Kevin Goldstein, and MiLB.com are just some of those that you’ll find in the file.

The Excel workbook contains several tabs at the bottom representing each of the league’s divisions as well as a tab for top 100 lists and the top 20 lists from Baseball America.

Every time I update the file, I will change the topic heading to show the date of the revisions. I know there are a few lists that I’ve yet to add to this spreadsheet. They will be uploaded later this week. If you are aware of any current prospects sites that I may be missing, please drop me a line.

I will place a permanent link to the blog entry on the home page (under the Minors/College section) just in case you lose the bookmark.

File
2008-2009 Top Prospect Lists December 29, 2008.xls