It will go down as one of the worst losses in Phillies history, given the time and place. We won’t ever forget this one. It will haunt us.

The Phillies came within 1 strike of heading to the bottom of the ninth with a tie game and Phil Coke on the mound for the Yankees.

The possibility of a 2-2 World Series and Cliff Lee pitching tomorrow night was so close you could already imagine the headlines in the papers tomorrow and talk of how the resilient Phillies struck again – how these Phillies were not to be taken lightly. I could already imagine myself reading NY Post columns from bad writers bitching about Girardi’s decision to leave in Joba Chamberlin to pitch to Pedro Feliz.

It was so close.

But it wasn’t to be. Instead, I’ll have to avoid print media, electronic media, non-electronic, non-print media, ancient hieroglyphics that foretold of this disaster. It’s iPod time in the car tomorrow.

With a full count and no one on the ninth pitch of the at-bat, Johnny Damon singled to left field. Should have been a minor speed bump even with the dangerous Mark Teixeira coming to the plate.

The Phils put the shift on for Teixeira, which someone with more baseball knowledge than me will need to explain to me, as I don’t see the sense in shifting the entire infield over when you are protecting a one run lead and you’ve got a runner on base. Of course, this discussion may have been academic had Carlos Ruiz not thrown to second base to try and throw out Johnny Damon on a steal. With no one covering third due to the shift, Damon wisely took off for third base and Pedro Feliz had no prayer of catching him.

The rest happened so quickly. Teixeira HBP. A-Rod double to left. Posada two-run single to left center. Game over.

Blanton pitched well enough to win, I guess. But the two-run 5th inning was grossly unnecessary given the fact that he had retired 11 straight before walking the anemic Nick Swisher on 4 pitches. That opened the door for 2 runs the Phils could ill-afford to give up.

The top of the ninth was a fitting, even poetic end to the game. Ryan Madson threw 22 pitches in Game 3 and another 20 pitches in the 8th inning tonight. Sending him back out for another frame in the 9th was probably unwise. Besides being unfailingly loyal all season to Brad Lidge, Charlie didn’t have much more in the way of options. I suppose he could have trotted Chad Durbin out there, but he hardly looked good after throwing 29 pitches in an ineffective 7th inning in Game 3. I suppose we can blame Cole Hamels’ short start in Game 3 for the lack of bullpen options.

It would have been unthinkable for Lidge not to screw up one of these games after struggling so much during the season. Let’s just be glad he stayed perfect in 2008, otherwise this loss could be far more painful had we not won it all just a year ago.

Lidge will be a popular choice as the goat for this game, but Charlie’s decision to shift the infield with a runner on base and Ruiz’s poor decision to throw to second to try and get Damon on the steal are almost as egregious.

In Game 5, Cliff Lee will do everything in his power to get this series back to New York. Certainly anything can happen from here on out. It just looked a lot better with 2 outs and no one on in the top of the ninth.