That's the way it works now, after Cole Hamels disassembled in the middle innings against the Yankees last night. That is the rotation the Phillies have devised, and that is the savior you get.

The Phillies could lose tonight and still come back to win the World Series. It won't be over. Not technically. But depending on how you feel about being set up with Pedro Martinez and Hamels in Yankee Stadium for potential starts in Game 6 and Game 7, it will be very close to being over.

With last night's 8-5 loss, the Phillies trail in a postseason series for the first time since the 2007 division series against Colorado.

They blitzed through Milwaukee, Los Angeles, and Tampa Bay in 14 games on the way to the championship a year ago.

In the space of 10 games this postseason, they dismissed the Rockies and the Dodgers and took a 1-0 World Series lead on the Yankees.

Two games later, they find themselves in the unfamiliar playoff position of needing to come back to win a series, and they have Blanton to lead the charge. It's not the worst position to be in, as Blanton faces off against CC Sabathia, who should have nothing but bad memories of Citizens Bank Park in this position.

Blanton has been a willing, predictable starter for the Phillies this season. He took the ball for 31 starts, usually went six innings, and gave up three runs and then went to the bench to hope for the best. He gave up 30 home runs, which was the fourth-highest total allowed in either league. Tonight, he takes that out against a team that hit 244 homers this season.

Mix it all together and ask if that's going to be enough to beat the Yankees and avoid a perilous spot in which the Phils have to win three straight to earn a repeat championship. You can only hope.

Last night's loss for Hamels began when he thought he had Mark Teixeira struck out in the fourth inning, but the home plate umpire disagreed. Hamels followed the ensuing walk to Teixeira by giving up an Alex Rodriguez home run off the television camera in the right-field corner. The following inning it was Andy Pettitte's bloop run batted in that unraveled him, and what had begun with three innings of no-hit ball ended amid a smattering of boos from the Halloween ghosts in the stands.

As if it had to be pointed out again, this isn't 2008, particularly for Hamels. A year ago, because Brad Lidge anchored the back of the bullpen and the role players filled in from there, Charlie Manuel didn't have to fidget with his rotation, and he certainly didn't have to worry about Hamels.

All that changed when Lidge proved unreliable this season and Manuel - with some justification - felt the bullpen needed bolstering for the playoff run. He removed Blanton and J.A. Happ from the rotation, slipped Happ back in for a divisional series start and then used Blanton for one start in the NL Championship Series.

It was a chance Manuel felt he had to take even though, pitching on their regular rest and comfortable in the rhythms of the season, Happ and Blanton had been his most reliable starters for most of the season.

In the World Series, Happ is not scheduled to make a start, although that could change. If the Phillies force a Game 6 or Game 7, Happ could take one of those, perhaps supplanting Hamels.

Manuel passed over Hamels once this series already, pushing him back from a Game 2 start to last night's start. Whether that affected Hamels' confidence or not is impossible to tell. It didn't help.

Blanton's confidence should be all right, for what that's worth. Manuel decided not to pitch Cliff Lee on short rest in tonight's game, which would have also made Lee available - also on short rest - for a Game 7.

"Blanton's definitely been one of our most consistent pitchers this year," Manuel said. "He's a guy that when he goes out there, he has to have command of his pitches, and he'll use all his pitches and he can make adjustments."

Since the beginning of September, Blanton has made seven starts, six in the regular season and one in the postseason. He has a 5.22 earned run average in those starts, mostly within that elusive rhythm of the season. Tonight, he pitches on 12 days of rest. When he gave up four runs in six innings against the Dodgers, he had gone 16 days between starts.

"It was just one bad inning in that game," Blanton said. "That's kind of the way the game goes sometimes. I could throw exactly the same way against the same team the next time and it might be seven innings, one run."

Yes, it might, and tonight would be a good spot for that next time to come around. Not that much is riding on Joe Blanton tonight, after all. Just the World Series.