Phillies: 5 players who moved to the dark side in Washington DC
By David Esser
#3. Matt Stairs
Yes, THAT Matt Stairs. The famous Matt Stairs who engrained his place in Phillies history forever with just a few swings of his bat. Despite cementing his legacy via his heroics in Philadelphia during the 2008 season, the iconic DH actually finished his career on a different NL East team.
After a 15 year career which included a plethora of different organizations, Stairs finally found himself in Philadelphia during the 2008 season. Acquired as a last second “win now” move of sorts, Stairs was the Phillies go-to option off of the bench. At 40 years old, Stairs only real ability at this point in time was swinging for the fences.
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Stairs made just four plate appearances during the 2008 postseason, but he made the most of them. Coming on as a pinch hitter against the Dodgers in the NLCS, Stairs ripped a two-run home run deep “into the night”. Stairs’ heroics during that game helped the Phillies secure an extremely tough win away from Citizens Bank Park.
Despite playing less than a season with the Phillies in 2008, t-shirts were printed in Stairs’ honor during the postseason run.
Stairs hung around for the 2009 season before ultimately taking his talents elsewhere. After a short stint with the Padres in 2010, Stairs found himself landing with the Washington Nationals of all teams for the 2011 season. At the age of 43, Stairs hit zero home runs across 74 plate appearances. Stairs was cut halfway through the season and retired just two days later.