All of the above have started games for the Phillies in the postseason. Except Blanton. He won't get his shot until tonight, in Game 4 of the National League Championship Series at Citizens Bank Park, the eighth playoff game the National League East champions are playing this October.

Now, there are probably some big-leaguers who would have been mightily offended by this state of affairs. They might have stomped their feet, made a snide comment, held their breath until their face turned Dodger blue.

This is not Blanton's style, however, even though his placid exterior masks a fierce competitive nature.

"I'm the kind of guy, I'm going to do pretty much whatever it is they ask," said the large righthander, who made two appearances out of the bullpen in the NLDS against the Rockies.

"They're not going to ask me if I can pitch out of the bullpen and have me say, 'No.' I'm not going to be that guy who does that. I'm going to do whatever it takes to help us win. If that means being in the bullpen or not throwing at all or whatever it is, I'm going to do as much as I can to help us win. And help us achieve the goal we've been working for all year.

"Either way. I feel like in the postseason, every game is big."

He said that going from being a starter the entire regular season, to a reliever at the onset of the playoffs, back to starting isn't a big deal.

"I mean, you get a couple days notice," he said. "So you've got those days to get mentally prepped and get yourself ready to get back in the mode of going 100 pitches.

"It's part of the postseason. It's part of what sometimes makes it fun, guys getting put in roles they're not really accustomed to. And you take it for what it is, try to help your team win, do whatever it is that you need to do."

Manuel didn't announce until Saturday's workout that Blanton would start instead of Happ.

"I didn't really even think about it," Blanton insisted. "I just tried to keep the same attitude the whole way through the postseason, not speculate on anything . . . I was just kind of being on call, I guess you could say.

"If I start thinking [about] starting and I'm still in the bullpen, then I'm not mentally ready to [relieve]. I just kept an open mind to whatever happened and then just went with it."

Blanton was 2-0 in the postseason last year and hit a memorable home run against Tampa Bay in the World Series. In fact, tonight's game will be Blanton's first postseason start since that game, in which he also held the Rays to two runs on four hits in six innings with seven strikeouts.

He said fans still bring up the homer.

"Even now when I think back, I really just think about all the adrenaline I had when I did that," he said. "I enjoyed that but I almost didn't get to because I was so worried about trying to bring myself back down to pitch and not letting myself get out of rhythm. Because I think at that point it was something like a 5-2 game, which is a couple guys on and a big swing and they're right back in the game. I didn't want that to happen."

He never got the ball back as a souvenir. The bat he used was donated to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y.

Blanton didn't say "no" when the Phillies told him they wanted him to work out of the bullpen at the start of the playoffs this year. And he darn sure didn't say no when they told him they wanted him to start tonight.