DAVID M. WARREN / Staff photographer
Joe Blanton remained aggressive, even with a big lead.
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John Smallwood: Blanton finally benefits from Phillies' offense
JOE BLANTON has been waiting for some of that good love other Phillies pitchers have been getting.
In his previous 13 starts, Blanton surrendered more than three runs only once, but his record was an unremarkable 4-3, with six no-decisions.
Despite posting a 3.62 ERA in six starts in June, a 1.21 ERA in four starts in July, and a 2.61 ERA in his first three starts in August, the Phillies were only 6-7 in those games.
It's been a lack of run support.
At the beginning of the season, Blanton received all kinds of cushions, as the Phillies' offense scored at least five runs in seven of his first 10 starts.
But since beating San Diego, 5-3, on June 1, the Phillies scored five or more runs in only two Blanton starts.
Last night, the Phillies' bats made up with Blanton with a show of affection by pounding out 12 hits in a 12-3 victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks.
"It's not an easy game, but when you get some runs, you can go out and just attack the zone and make them try to beat you," said Blanton, who gave up 10 hits in eight innings. "Obviously, it makes you more comfortable.
"You're throwing in a one-run game, and one pitch can tie the game up or give them a lead. A game like this makes it a little easier to attack the hitters."
The baseball gods help those who help themselves.
One area the offense struggled with recently was producing with runners in scoring position and less than two outs. And with Blanton coming up with one out in the fourth inning and the bases loaded in a 3-3 game, it figured that trend would continue.
Instead, the pitcher who came into the game batting .056 hit a slow chopper up the middle that Arizona could not turn into an inning-ending doubleplay. Jayson Werth scored from third, and the pitcher's RBI opened the floodgates.
"Well, I definitely was trying to hit a grounder," said Blanton, who singled in the sixth and seventh innings for his first career multiple-hit game. "That's a recipe for a doubleplay, since I'm not too swift of foot.
"Fortunately, I hit it weak enough to avoid that, and then we got some more runs."
What you had to like about Blanton was that even after the Phillies gave him two more runs in the fifth inning and five more in the sixth, he still approached the game as if it were one of his one-run nail-biters.
Blanton didn't let Arizona catch a glimmer of hope after Werth, Carlos Ruiz and Ryan Howard broke the game open with home runs.
He set the Diamondbacks down in order in the sixth inning after the Phillies made it 6-3, and gave up only a two-out single to Stephen Drew in the seventh after the margin increased to 11-3.
Blanton credited much of that to Ruiz, his catcher.
"Ruiz did a nice job with that," Blanton said. "I thought that was kind of evident, because we came out and still threw offspeed pitches. It wasn't that we had a big lead, so here are four-seam fastballs down the middle.
"Do that and the next thing you know, it's a three-run game again. You've got to keep pitching your game, but you have to be aggressive. It's a fine line, but Ruiz did a fabulous job of keep calling the game and mixing it up."
Blanton went eight innings for only the third time this season, and it continued the Phillies starters' recent pattern of preserving the bullpen.
Officially, the Phillies got seven innings of relief pitching during this three-game sweep of Arizona, but six of those came on Wednesday night, when Jamie Moyer came in for Pedro Martinez after an 66-minute rain delay.
The fact that Moyer went the final six was as good as if Martinez had pitched a complete game.
The temperature was in the 90s for the start of each game of this series, and it was definitely a boon to conserve the relievers' strength by not having to use them.
"We wanted to rest our bullpen coming out of Atlanta," Phillies manager Charlie Manuel said. "We got to rest the back end of our bullpen, which was very important. Actually, we got to rest everybody in it." *
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