This one hurts the most. This one takes the Phillies from feel-good breakers of the city's championship drought to the gut-punch territory long occupied by the Eagles and Flyers.
Really, you have to go back to the Eagles' NFC championship game losses to Tampa Bay and Carolina - both at home, both against lesser teams, just like this - to find a one-game disappointment of this caliber.
In time, this season will be remembered for the fun times. For watching Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee and Cole Hamels work their magic, for that feeling that the Phillies were going to win every time they took the field.
In simpler times (like, say, 2007), that would have been satisfying. Before this era of big games and bigger dreams began, making the playoffs was exciting. Once the city's championship thirst was quenched, though, that wasn't going to cut it - especially as this team stockpiled Cy Young Award winners.
There are only so many realistic opportunities to win championships, and this franchise just squandered its third in a row. That is the real pity for the Phillies, and especially their fans. Halladay and Lee have only so many great years left in their golden arms. Jimmy Rollins could be playing elsewhere next year. So many things can derail a team this good over the course of a season - injuries, slumps, a hot division rival - that you just can't count on being where the Phillies have been five years in a row.
After bringing Lee back to join Halladay, Hamels, and Roy Oswalt, the Phillies were compared in the most favorable ways to the great Atlanta Braves teams of the '90s and '00s. They now will fear the less-favorable comparisons. Despite all those great pitchers and all those division titles, the Braves had just one World Series title to show for their greatness.
