By Paul Hagen

Philadelphia Daily News

NEW YORK — Now that it’s over, now that the parade has been canceled and there is no championship left to defend, the Phillies have to be honest with themselves.

Did they trip over their own shoelaces in the World Series?

Or were they simply beaten by a better team?

The suspicion here is that the Phillies and Yankees could keep playing from now until the BCS Championship Game and that New York would win a majority of the time.

In the end, as it always seems to do, it came down to pitching. It always does at this time of the year. And the Yankees were stronger, both in the rotation and the bullpen.

“They outplayed us,” said lefthander Cliff Lee. “They deserved it. It’s hard to take, but they were better than us this year. It is what it is. You have to tip your cap to them.”

Said righthander Brett Myers: “Why did they win? I really couldn’t tell you. Maybe the ball was just rolling their way. It’s tough to swallow but there’s not very much we can do. They played well. They beat us.”

General manager Ruben Amaro Jr. has talked openly about the role that luck can play in being the last team standing, especially in avoiding injuries.

The Phillies were able to sidestep crippling injuries in 2008. This year, they lost No. 2 starter Myers early to hip surgery. He made what seemed like a miraculous recovery and appeared poised to help the team out of the bullpen, when he was sidelined again with a sore shoulder.

Cole Hamels had elbow issues in spring training and never found his stride. J.C. Romero was absent for the first 50 games for violating baseball’s steroids policy, came back, then was lost for the season with a strained forearm.

Not having Romero in the postseason meant that Rookie of the Year J.A. Happ had to be used out of the bullpen in the playoffs.

Jamie Moyer pitched his way out of the rotation and then required surgery to repair torn groin muscles that ended his season. And, of course, Brad Lidge had more knee problems in spring training and went on to blow 11 saves once the season started.

Adding Lee and Pedro Martinez helped them paper over some of those issues. They survived the first two rounds of the playoffs. But the rotation was still thin and the bullpen discombobulated.

“At one time, around the All-Star break, I thought we had the best starting pitching we’ve had since I’ve been here,” said manager Charlie Manuel. “But we ended up having to patch it together.

“We didn’t play as good as we can, but at the same time we played a real good team who did a good job. They definitely deserved to win.”

So it shouldn’t have been a surprise that the Yankees wrestled the championship away from the Phillies, clinching it with a 7-3 win in Game 6 Wednesday night that wasn’t really as close as the final score indicated.

Sure, the Phillies had a chance. If things had gone their way, they might even have managed to repeat as world champions.

But the better team won.

HERO

Hideki Matsui. Reduced to pinch-hitting duty by the lack of a designated hitter in the National League city, Matsui was back in the starting lineup. Hoo, boy, was he ever. A home run, a double and a single produced six RBI, tying the World Series record originally set by Yankees second baseman Bobby Richardson on Oct. 8, 1960, in Game 3 against the Pirates.

Matsui batted .615 with three home runs and eight RBI and was voted World Series Most Valuable Player.

GOAT

Pedro Martinez. The Phillies set up their rotation the way they did in part because they thought Martinez, with his big-game experience and Hall of Fame credentials, wouldn’t be fazed by pitching at Yankee Stadium in the most important games of the year. Wednesday night, though, he just didn’t have it. He gave up four runs in four innings and it could have been worse as at least five of the outs he recorded came on balls that were hit hard, but at a fielder.

THE STAT

The Phillies batted just .227 against New York. “I give some credit to the Yankees pitching but it seemed like our offense, when we really had to get big hits or do things to take them out of the game, it seemed like we couldn’t do it. We kind of sputtered a little bit,” Charlie Manuel said.

DID YOU NOTICE . . .

—That catcher Carlos Ruiz visited the mound to talk with Phillies starter Pedro Martinez after his (ital) first (end ital) pitch of the game?

—That it was apparent early that Martinez didn’t have it? He retired the Yankees in order in the bottom of the first, but one of the outs came on a line drive to left by Derek Jeter and another was a deep fly ball to right that Jayson Werth caught in front of the fence. And Matsui ripped two hard fouls before connecting for his two-run homer in the second.

NUMEROLOGY

13: Strikeouts for Ryan Howard, a new World Series record, after he whiffed in the eighth.

17: Postseason RBI by Howard after he homered in the sixth. That ties the all-time record for a National League player, also held by San Francisco’s Rich Aurilia (2002) and Florida’s Ivan Rodriguez (2003).

77: Pitches by Phillies starting pitcher Pedro Martinez in just four innings.

MISCELLANY

Wednesday’s game tied a record for the latest date a World Series game has ever been played. In 2001, when the season was interrupted by the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the postseason was pushed back as a result, the Arizona Diamondbacks beat the Yankees in Game 7 on Nov. 4.