Sports

Five Things to Know about Game 5, Cards vs. Phillies

We're down to the final game of the National League Division Series. If you've got anything to say to Phillies Phans, say it now — or during our live game time chat.

The wild card St. Louis Cardinals have pushed the Philadelphia Phillies, the winningest team in Major League Baseball this season, to a deciding game in the first round of the playoffs. Friday at 7:30 p.m., the Cards’ Chris Carpenter squares off against the Phillies’ Roy Halladay in the City of Brotherly Love.

Can we finish the job? If you’ve got something to say to Phillies fans, now’s the time to say it. They’re listening. Patch’s St. Louis-area sites are partnering with our sister sites in the Philadelphia area to note five things you should know about this game — .

Prop your laptop next to your chips and come back to Patch at 7 p.m., when we’ll start the chat and you can talk some smack with Phils Phans.

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And keep these five things in mind.

The 102 wins this season. Phillies fans are proud of their franchise-best 102 wins this season. We hesitate to remind them that the Cards have won 105 games in a single seasonmore than once (2004, 1943 and 1944). And the last time we did, we went to the World Series...and got swept by the Red Sox.

Find out what's happening in Town And Country-Manchesterwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The Cards have a better record against the Phillies. This season, we’re 6-3 against the Phillies in the regular season. The Times-Herald in Montgomery County, PA, calls it a “statistical oddity.” We’re just sayin’.

Rally Squirrel or roadkill? Phillies fans may be clever, if not subtle. They’re maiming and destroying replicas of the “Rally Squirrel” that made appearances in Busch Stadium for games 3 and 4 — including a sprint in front of home plate during the fifth inning Wednesday.

Which Chris Carpenter will we see? Will we get the dominant, complete-game, mow’em down, shut’em out Chris Carpenter that we saw in the final game of the season against Houston? Or the laboring-on-short-rest Carpenter from game 1 of this series? We love our ace. And the Phillies rightly love their 19-6 Roy Halladay.

Halladay vs. Holliday. Sorry. We just couldn’t resist. But we weren’t happy with the results. In six at-bats against Halladay, Matt Holliday has only one hit. His on-base percentage is .286 — thanks to one walk.


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