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Former Phillies Friday: Hunter Pence says 2011 NLDS will ‘pain me the rest of my life’

Hunter Pence spent parts of two seasons with the Phillies.

On any given day at Citizens Bank Park, the most popular jersey you’ll see in the crowd is No. 3, which, of course, belongs to Bryce Harper. But occasionally, you’ll see a Philadelphia Phillies fan wearing a No. 3 jersey with Hunter Pence’s name on the back, a reminder of a brief period in franchise history.

For the Phillies — a franchise that began play in 1883 — the 2011 regular season may have been the peak of the entire organization. The Phillies had gone to the NLCS in three consecutive seasons, winning a World Series in 2008 and returning to the Fall Classic in 2009. Prior to the 2011 season, Cliff Lee chose to return to the Phillies, rather than signing with the Texas Rangers or New York Yankees, in free agency. He formed one of the greatest rotations in MLB history with Roy Halladay, Cole Hamels and Roy Oswalt.

Looking to bolster the Phillies lineup, general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. pulled off a blockbuster trade at the deadline, acquiring Pence from the Houston Astros. Pence would essentially replace Jayson Werth — who had departed to join the Washington Nationals in free agency following the 2010 season — the thinking was. The vibes around the Phillies have probably never been higher.

“Oh man, that was extraordinary,” Pence said Wednesday at Citizens Bank Park, prior to working on the Giants telecast. “To get to experience being a Phillie … the Philly culture … the baseball passion … it’s one of the most passionate fanbases … it was just absolutely one of the greatest memories of my baseball career.”

Pence’s addition would pay immediate dividends for the Phillies, as he slashed .324/.394/.560 with 11 home runs, 35 RBIs, a .954 OPS and a 2.4 WAR in just 54 games. He regularly received standing ovations as he trotted out to right field.

A strong second half from Pence helped the Phillies to win their fifth consecutive NL East title, setting a new franchise record with 102 regular season wins.

“It was such an amazing time to be part of Phillies baseball,” Pence said. “And they’re in another one of those windows that’s really, really, really good where the city is backing them up and just caught by the storm with this group of ballplayers they have.

“But that time with [Chase] Utley and [Ryan] Howard and winning the divisions … we had Halladay, Lee, Hamels, Oswalt … with [Brad] Lidge and [Ryan] Madson in the back. It was the most talented team that I was ever a part of. The opportunity to get to dive into the amount of baseball knowledge that those guys had … I learned so much.”

But the saying “just get into the tournament” works both ways. In a quest to set the aforementioned wins record, the Phillies swept the division-rival Atlanta Braves in the final series of the regular season, eliminating them from the playoffs and allowing the St. Louis Cardinals to reach the postseason as the NL’s lone Wild Card representative.

The Phillies won Games 1 and 3 of the series, but Lee blew a 4-0 lead in Game 2 of the best-of-five series. The Cardinals defeated the Phillies 5-3 in St. Louis in Game 4, setting up a win-or-go home Game 5 in Philadelphia, with Halladay facing off against another former Cy Young Award winner in Chris Carpenter.

For Halladay, the first inning was a disaster. He gave up a leadoff triple to St. Louis shortstop Rafael Furcal, who was then plated on an RBI double by center fielder Skip Schumaker. He needed 34 pitches to get through the inning.

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To Halladay’s credit, the future Hall of Famer rebounded to pitch eight innings, preventing the Cardinals from scoring again. The only problem is that Carpenter wouldn’t allowing a single run to score the entire evening — despite deep drives off the bats of Raúl Ibañez and Chase Utley that may have been home runs on warmer days — pitching a complete-game shutout to end the Phillies season.

Nearly 12 years later, Game 5 of the 2011 NLDS is still a sore subject, both for Phillies fans and Pence.

“It’ll pain me the rest of my life,” Pence admitted. “It was just one of those cold nights where the ball wasn’t flying. We were hitting it well and just, you know. The first inning, [Rafael] Furcal, before it got really cold, gets one off the top of the wall. They ground him in, and [Chris] Carpenter and [Roy] Halladay, they just pitched outstandingly.

“But, it really does hurt me, because that team was probably the most talented team I was ever a part of, and still can’t believe we weren’t able to get there. It just wasn’t our year.”

After that loss, things were never the same for the Phillies. Howard tore his left achilles on the final play of the game, destroying the second-half of his career. Halladay — who felt a pop in his back in Game 5 — would post a 5.15 ERA over the next two seasons, an unceremonious end to a legendary career. The Phillies wouldn’t post another winning record until 2021, and wouldn’t play in the postseason again until 2022.

The 2012 season opened with Pence on the cover of Philadelphia Magazine with the headline “The Next Great Phillie.” But with an aging core and not much in the way of exciting prospects, a middling Phillies team elected to trade Pence — playing in a contract year — to the San Francisco Giants that summer so they could try to retool.

As it turned out, the trade package that the Phillies received — Nate Schierholtz, Tommy Joseph and Seth Rosin — didn’t achieve that goal. Schierholtz was a utility player that spent the rest of the 2012 season with the Phillies. Rosin made four Major League appearances, including one in 2015 for the Phillies. Joseph could hit for power and had a strong arm, tools that may have allowed him to have an extended MLB career if concussions didn’t force him to move from catcher to first base.

For Pence, the move to San Francisco turned out better than he could have imagined. He helped lead the Giants to a World Series title in 2012, earning a five-year/$90 million extension. Pence would win another World Series title with the Giants in 2014. He had a guest role on “Fuller House” in 2016, playing himself in an episode where he was dating Stephanie Tanner. He was placed onto the Giants Wall of Fame in 2022. You can make an argument that the best thing that ever happened to Pence was getting traded to the Giants.

But there is a part of Pence that will always wonder how things would have played out if his stint in Philadelphia had been longer than parts of two seasons.

“Yeah, it’s kind of wild. I was definitely shocked [to be traded], because we were only four games out at the time,” Pence said. “[Ryan] Howard and [Chase] Utley were out the whole first half.

“So, they had a tough decision to make,” Pence continued. “And they ended up trading me and [Shane] Victorino. I really thought we were going to be able to get back in it and make the push to make the playoffs, and was really dialed in and kind of caught off guard. Getting traded to San Francisco worked out amazing for me. … It could have gone a different way, but that was the route they took, and the rest is kind of history.”