Winning Despite Blanton

Joe Blanton arrived here at the trade deadline with two tags hung around his ample neck: "innings eater" and "throws strikes." He's done neither.

Blanton barely survived his five innings of work last night, coughing up two leads as he struggled again to give the Phils beleaguered bullpen a respite. Blanton walked three Marlins all of whom eventually scored. After the game, he was quoted as saying "I felt good [in the first inning]. Then, I tried to do too much." If by "too much" he meant nibbling that would be subject to interpretation. From my couch it looked like Blanton just didn't have command of his pitches. It's worth noting that his ample girth makes following through on his pitching motion a tad more difficult. Some portly pitchers have succeeded in the past despite their avoirdupoids, but Blanton does not appear to be one of them.

Fortunately, the offense showed up last night in the persons of Jimmy Rollins (three hits and three stolen bases), Ryan Howard (two hits and two rbi's) and particularly Jayson Werth (a game-winning three run homer).

Florida made it tough as usual, compensating for their free-swinging ways with a couple of home runs, one each off Blanton and JC Romero, but the Phils had answers for each blow as they moved to within a game and a half of idle New York.

Tonight Kyle Kendrick returns to the rotation after a forced one-start hiatus allowing him to contemplate two straight poor outings. The Marlins are the type of team that will jump all over a mistake and Kendrick lacks the assortment of pitches to keep them off balance. He's got to keep his sinker down or the bleacher bums will be tossing a lot of balls back onto the turf.