JP Howell gets the win, when he retires Chase Utley to get out of the bottom of the sixth and Dioner Navarro leads off the top of the seventh with a solo shot.  The Tampa bullpen makes it stand up for a 3-2 win.  There, all you need to watch is the Obama ad and then you can call it a night. If there's a mini baby boom on July 29, 2009, you know who to blame.

David Price wins and drives in the only run scored in tonight's conclusion.

He then goes on to win both Games 6 and 7 (in relief), becoming the first player in MLB history to earn three World Series wins before even having a regular season big league decision, setting him on the road to 400  career wins and nine Cy Young Awards.

Nah, I don't believe any of that. But it's cool to imagine.

The game goes to the 15th inning, thus giving a full 9 inning game to the TV audience (plus a 1/2), which by the end, after another 2 rain delays and numerous delays due to TV ad time, consists entirely of the players families who headed home 1/2 way through the game due to the cold and rain. Game end time is 4 AM eastern.

Iwamura takes Lidge deep in the 10th. Rays win.

The weather in Philly does not get good enough to play baseball in, until April 17th. The two teams get one inning in on November 3rd though. Matt Stairs hits a game winning HR and retires after the game. This situation is weird for a couple of reasons. 1) I don't see Tampa tying the game without the weather being that horrible. Rollins gets to that ball even in normal bad weather. 2) If the series goes long, Hamels can now pitch again in the 7th game which is ENORMOUS for the Phillies instead on having to rely on Moyer to pull another trick out of his sleeve.

And thus, as it was always meant to be, the entire World Series comes down to...Eric Hinske.

Sigh.  The decision to leave Howell in to face Burrell (who kills lefties) will be mooted about in Tampa Bay quite a bit, I imagine.

Maddon may have any number of virtues, but he gives away outs a little too freely for my taste. We saw that earlier when Bartlett was allowed to bat against RHP late in losing games. And now this entirely indefensible Howell fiasco.

Unconventional isn't always good just because it's unconventional. Sometimes the obvious move is the right move. It may be boring and predictable, but that doesn't keep it from being right.

Not a lot of Phillies fans here.

The Phillies weakness was their starting lineup and both Blanton and Moyer rose up to the occasion. That made the difference.

So, what do you guys think of the high balls to Pena/low balls to Longoria angle? Is it that simple?

Congrats to the '08 Phillies - they played well and deserved to win. I thought the Rays were a bit disappointing after having outlasted the Red Sox in a hard-fought ALCS. I don't know - do you cut the Rays some slack because of their youth and relative inexperience? They made some painful mistakes in the field and on the basepaths (for example, Crawford not running out a hard-hit ground ball that Rollins bobbled, and Baldelli not running out an infield popup that ended up being dropped). Credit them for battling to the end, though.

I know the umpires have a tough job, but that was a pretty rough series. Blown calls at first, third, inconsistent calls on checked swings (including a called strike two on Hinske, the last batter of the game).

That was a brutal call on Hinske's "not checked" swing their in the 9th. But it wasn't as bad as the non call on Chase Utley's obvious swing the inning before. Oh well.

I'm glad Lidge didn't go after Hinske with a first pitch fastball. They pitched him beautifully. Brad Lidge deserved to get that monkey off his back.

I also didn't like how Ken (who I don't mind) brought up the HR to Pujols in the immediate post game interview... let the man enjoy the moment!

But that was really fun... not going to lie. Do you think Bud drew it up this way? Play 2/3's a ball game, then delay the final 1/3rd and then have an exciting sprint to the finish.