On this date in 2008: At long last, the Philadelphia Phillies are World Champions of baseball for the second time in their 125-year history as they edge the Rays in the resumption of Game 5, 4-3. As play picked up in the bottom of the sixth, Geoff Jenkins led off with a pinch-hit double and scored one out later when Tampa Bay second baseman Akinori Iwamura was unable to secure a Jayson Werth bloop to shallow right. Rocco Baldelli would tie it with a home run in the seventh, but the Rays were denied a go-ahead run with two outs when Chase Utley grabbed an Iwamura grounder up the middle, faked a throw to first before making an off-balance throw home on one hop to nail Jason Bartlett trying to score from second. In what would be his last at-bat as a Phillie, Pat Burrell led off the home seventh with a double high off the angled wall in center for his only hit of the World Series. Eric Bruntlett ran for Burrell and came in to score the eventual winning run on a one-out single by Pedro Feliz. Tampa Bay would put the tying run in scoring position with one out in the ninth (Dioner Navarro singled and pinch-runner Fernando Perez stole second), but Brad Lidge got Ben Zobrist to line out to right for the second out, then got Eric Hinske to swing over an 0-2 slider at 9:58 PM as Citizens Bank Park and Phillies fans everywhere erupted in celebration. J.C. Romero joined Steve Carlton as the only pitcher to win a World Series clincher for the Phils, with Lidge joining Tug McGraw in the save department in that scenario
Posted on: Tue, 29 Oct 2013 15:53:04 +0000
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