Phils eliminated in shocking Game 5 loss to Cards

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In the end, only painful images remained:

The St. Louis Cardinals dancing in triumph on the Citizens Bank Park infield.

Ryan Howard collapsing to the ground and writhing in pain.

Roy Halladay sitting in the funeral-parlor clubhouse staring blankly into his locker.

And perhaps the most painful off all:

Long after the stadium had emptied, and after most of the players had dressed and left the clubhouse, Shane Victorino reached into his locker and pulled out a sheet of World Series tickets marked for games in Philadelphia. He looked at them wistfully then tore them in pieces and dropped them into the trash bin as he headed for the door and another cold winter.

This is all happened Friday night. The new Black Friday.

The Phillies' season of great expectations came crashing down in a 1-0 loss to the Cardinals in Game 5 of the National League Division Series. (See game breakdown.) The season is over for the local nine. It fell short of reaching a fourth straight NL Championship Series. It fell way short of reaching the destination that had been laid out months earlierthe World Series.

Even a major-league-best 102 wins will not soothe this wound. So much more was expected from these Phillies.

I feel very empty right now, manager Charlie Manuel said.

Disappointing year or disappointing ending?

Disappointing year, said Cliff Lee, whose December arrival fueled a World Series-or-bust mindset from the bleachers to the clubhouse to the front office. We had higher expectations than this.

Never has a loss hurt the Phillies in so many ways. Another year has ticked off the biological clock of the teams nucleus. A number of key players, such as Jimmy Rollins and Ryan Madson, will become free agents. And from a financial standpoint, the early playoff exit will cost the franchise millions of dollars in revenue. The Phillies had a 178 million payroll in 2011, second only to the 202 million that the New York Yankees spent. Like the Phillies, the Yankees saw their season end in a one-run loss to Detroit on Thursday night.

For the second season in row, the Phillies bowed out of the playoffs with their bats turning feeble. They hit just .177 (8 for 45) with runners in scoring position in losing to San Francisco in the NLCS last October. This October, they scored 21 runs in five games against the Cardinals, but 11 of them came in the first game of the series. The Phils scored just 10 runs over the final four games and scored runs in just three of their final 34 innings. As a team, the Phils hit just .226 in the series. Howard was 2 for 19 and hitless in his last 15 at-bats. Placido Polanco was also 2 for 19. Carlos Ruiz was 1 for 17. The Cardinals did not tear the cover off the ball. They hit .259 and were there for the taking, but the Phillies never took them.

Howard made the last out of the Phillies postseason for the second straight year. This time, he crumpled to the turf after hitting a grounder to second base. Howard played with a sore ankle throughout the final month of the season. He said he may have torn his Achilles tendon. He will have an MRI on Saturday and he said that surgery was possible.

The series turned in Game 2 when Lee could not hold an early 4-0 lead at home. The Phillies lost that game, 5-4, as the Cards tied the series at a game apiece.

I take a lot of responsibility for this, Lee said after the Game 5 loss. I had a 4-0 lead and wasnt able to keep it. If I did, we would have swept the series. I wasnt able to keep a four-run lead and now its over.

This Phillies team was built on starting pitching, but against the Cardinals only Halladay could get through the seventh inning. He did it in his Game 1 win and again Friday night with an outstanding performance that saw him give up just one run in eight innings while striking out seven. Halladays lone walk was intentional. He was brilliant in pitching out of a one-out, bases-loaded jam in the eighth to keep the game close.

As good as Halladay was, his close friend and former Toronto teammate Chris Carpenter was better. He pitched a walk-free, three-hit shutout.

Halladay allowed a pair of extra-base hitsa triple to Rafael Furcal and a double to Skip Schumakerin falling behind in the first inning. That was the extent of the scoring for the game. The two teams might still be playing had Phillies centerfielder Victorino not missed a cutoff man on Furcals triple. A clean relay might have gotten Furcal at third. Victorino declined comment after the game. Manuel said it would have been a close play.

Halladay was composed when he met with reporters after a lengthy cooling off period in front of his locker. He looked drained. He pushed for a trade to Philadelphia because he thought this was the place his World Series dreams would come true. After two seasons and 40 regular-season wins, he is still looking for that ring.

We came up short, Halladay said. Obviously winning the World Series is the ultimate goal for us, so this is tough.

The hard part is you think about all the work you put in over the year, and then leading up to the game today and how big that is going to be, and then all of a sudden that just kind of dissipates. Its tough. Its hard to have it end like that. You always want to finish happy. Its hard to finish the season losing.

E-mail Jim Salisbury at jsalisbury@comcastsportsnet.com.

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