By: Tim Kelly, Managing Editor 
The Philadelphia Phillies entered the ninth inning yesterday evening with a 4-3 lead, seemingly headed towards avoiding a sweep at the hands of the Washington Nationals. Instead, Jeanmar Gomez loaded up the bases, before Jayson Werth, who seemingly has become one of the biggest villains in sports to Philadelphia fans, hit a walk-off single to win the game and secure a Nationals sweep.
Werth played for the Phillies from 2007 through 2010, accumulating 15.7 WAR (per Baseball Reference), while hitting 95 home runs and becoming the franchise's all-time leader in playoff home runs.
However, according to an article written by Ed Condran of Philly Voice, Werth knew during the 2010 season, a season in which the Phillies ultimately lost to the San Francisco Giants in the NLCS, that he wasn't going to return to Philadelphia after the season:
In August of 2010, he told me what was up next for him. “I get to sign one big contract in my career and it’s not going to be here,” Werth revealed.
He apparently doubled down on the belief that he wasn't going to return to Philadelphia after the season concluded:
During the final presser of his illustrious Phillies career, Werth chastised a beat reporter he loathed for asking too many questions during his exit interview, among many other reasons. “I won’t have to see him much anymore,” Werth said afterward.
Though it may seem rather curious for Werth to be this open about the fact that he wasn't going to Philadelphia initially during the Phillies' attempt to return to a third straight World Series and then after the team returned to its third consecutive league championship series, it's almost refreshing to think that Werth knew this, and still hit 27 home runs while driving in 85 RBIs in a year where the Phillies offense as a whole started to tail off.
The thing about Werth is that the Phillies allowed him to leave, signing in Washington for the most money. There was never much of an indication that once Werth hit free-agency, or probably prior to that, that the Phillies made an offer competitive with the seven-year/$126 million deal that Werth ultimately signed with Washington. The Phillies instead signed Cliff Lee to a five-year/$125 million deal, proving that they allowed Werth to walk because they believed he got overpaid in free-agency, not necessarily because they couldn't afford to retain him. And that's fine, but fans seemed to hold that against Werth, which never made a ton of sense.
And then, as alluded to in Condran's article, even more fans began to relentlessly pile on Werth when after a few Phillies fans taunted him after he broke his wrist he shot back and suggested that he would make sure the Phillies never won a World Series that the fans could celebrate again. While Werth probably shouldn't have lumped the actions of a few fans as a representation of the entire fanbase, it is understandable that following this incident and getting booed upon his return to Philadelphia that he didn't have a fond feeling about Phillies fans.
It appears that Werth, who the article suggests isn't particularly interested in what anyone thinks of him, will always have a complicated at best relationship with Phillies fans. To a degree it seems silly that both Werth and the fans are still upset about something that happened five years ago, though it's hard to imagine a scenario where either side ever reconciles with each other.
