Categories: Phillies Nuggets with Tim Kelly

15 years later, Evan Longoria will again face Phillies in October

Evan Longoria and the Diamondbacks will face the Phillies in the NLCS. (Zac BonDurant/Icon Sportswire)

Footage from the 2008 World Series increasingly looks grainy, and well, ancient. Oct. 29 will be the 15th anniversary of the Philadelphia Phillies winning the second World Series title in franchise history, as they defeated the Tampa Bay Rays in five games.

Perhaps — in their quest for a third championship — the 2023 iteration of the Phillies will still be alive on the day that anniversary is celebrated. For that scenario to become a reality, the Phillies will have to get by the final active player from either team in the 2008 World Series — Evan Longoria.

Longoria was the No. 3 overall pick by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in the 2006 MLB Draft out of Long Beach State University. Two years later, Longoria joined a Rays team that had exorcised the Devil out of their nickname and posted the first winning season in the franchise’s brief history, going 97-65 and winning the AL East. For his part, Longoria hit .272 with 27 home runs, 85 RBIs and an .874 OPS in 122 games, en route to winning the AL Rookie of the Year.

The Rays would defeat the Chicago White Sox in four games in the ALDS, before upsetting the Boston Red Sox in a seven-game ALCS, eliminating the defending World Series Champions, the team many believed to be the most talented in 2008.

But the magic ran out for Longoria and the Rays in the Fall Classic. Despite entering the series as the favorites, Tampa Bay was defeated in five games by the Phillies. Longoria posted just one hit in 20 at-bats, striking out nine times in the series.

Longoria was unsuccessful in attempting to flip a Carlos Ruiz swinging bunt home in Game 3, with Eric Bruntlett scoring the winning run for the Phillies in the bottom of the ninth inning. He also was not-so-affectionally referred to as “Eva” throughout the series by Phillies fans, during the height of the actress with said name starring in “Desperate Housewives”:

Longoria would spend a decade with the Rays organization, and is the franchise’s all-time leader in WAR (51.2), games played (1,435), runs scored (780), total bases (2,630), doubles (338), home runs (261), runs batted in (892), walks (569) and times on base (2,095). With all due respect to the likes of Carl Crawford, Ben Zobrist and David Price, Longoria is almost certainly the greatest player in the history of the Rays, who began play in 1998.

While he probably won’t be a Hall of Famer, Longoria has gone on to have quite the decorated career. He’s a three-time All-Star, three-time Gold Glove Award winner and won a Silver Slugger Award in 2009. Based on some of the more analytical numbers, there’s a fair case to be made that Longoria is one of the 25 best third basemen in MLB history.

Yet, after reaching the World Series in his rookie season, Longoria hasn’t managed to get back to the sport’s biggest stage — not in nine additional years with the Rays, or five years with the San Francisco Giants. But now Longoria is back in the LCS for the first time since his rookie season, as the veteran on an upstart Diamondbacks team.

The 38-year-old signed a one-year/$4 million deal to join the Diamondbacks back in January. A back injury limited Longoria to 74 games in 2023. To his credit, Longoria hit 11 home runs and posted a .717 OPS in 237 plate appearances, so he still provided some value. But the last time he played in 90 or more games in a season was in 2019. It’s entirely possible that this will be Longoria’s last MLB season, and even more possible that this is his last, best chance to get an elusive World Series title.

On May 24, Longoria hit a towering 422-foot home run against the Phillies at Citizens Bank Park, in a game that Arizona ultimately lost in extra innings. While Longoria would probably love to beat the Phillies en route to getting back to the World Series, fans at Citizens Bank Park hope that’s the final time any 2008 Fall Classic participants homer in Philadelphia.