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Despite loss, Blanton strong in debut

YOU KNOW all of the cliches by now. Baseball teams do not get credit in the standings for silver linings, and the losses in April and May count just as much as the ones in September. And, even when discussing the big picture, the piece of it that the Phillies revealed last night when they called on long reliever, spot starter and Opening Day waiver-wire pickup Nelson Figueroa to enter a one-run game in the seventh inning was not a pretty one.

Joe Blanton's strong start was ruined by the Phillies' bullpen. (Steven M. Falk/Staff Photographer)
Joe Blanton's strong start was ruined by the Phillies' bullpen. (Steven M. Falk/Staff Photographer)Read more

YOU KNOW all of the cliches by now. Baseball teams do not get credit in the standings for silver linings, and the losses in April and May count just as much as the ones in September. And, even when discussing the big picture, the piece of it that the Phillies revealed last night when they called on long reliever, spot starter and Opening Day waiver-wire pickup Nelson Figueroa to enter a one-run game in the seventh inning was not a pretty one.

They are still counting heavily on Brad Lidge and J.C. Romero to return to form. They are still just 1-10 in games in which Roy Halladay doesn't pitch and they don't score more than six runs. And they still emerged last night with a 6-3 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals that dropped them to 14-11.

But while the "list" of unanswered concerns may soon reach "litany" status, the most important lesson taken from last night is still this:

Old Faithful Incarnate is back.

Joe Blanton officially returned last night with two outs in the second inning and a man standing on first base. Yadier Molina's sharp ground-ball single had skipped off the turf and struck him in the back of a leg, then rolled harmlessly to third base. It was the type of ball-on-flesh contact that sends shivers through a dugout, and the Phillies reacted accordingly: The entire infield began converging on Blanton as pitching coach Rich Dubee walked up the steps, fully intent on jogging out to the mound to give his starter the obligatory once-over.

But Blanton wasn't having it. Even on a normal night, he isn't a man who quibbles about mere flesh wounds. In the first 3 years of his big-league career, he started at least 31 games and pitched at least 194 1/3 innings. But last night, Blanton was making his first start of the season. He had spent the previous month watching from afar - or at least what felt like afar - as the Phillies struggled with their rotation depth. The last time he was this close to where he wanted to be, he threw a cutter in a late-March bullpen session and doubled over after it felt like a guitar string had snapped inside his rib cage.

And so Blanton looked up with disgust, and threw both of his arms in the air, and forcefully motioned for everybody - the infielders, catcher Carlos Ruiz, and Dubee - to return to their respective positions and get on with the game.

"I've been hit worse than that," Blanton said.

It was the hardest he would be hit until the seventh inning, when the Phillies sent him back to the mound in a 1-1 ballgame. Blanton had thrown just 79 pitches at that point, allowing one run on five hits in six innings. But he also hadn't been pitched that deep into a game since spring training, before he suffered a strained oblique in a bullpen session on March 30 and spent the first month of the season on the disabled list. And in the previous couple of innings he had allowed several hitters to make solid contact: Brendan Ryan, who was thrown out at third (dubiously, replays suggest) trying to stretch a double into a triple; Skip Schumaker, who lined out to centerfield; David Freese and Colby Rasmus, both of whom singled with two outs in the sixth.

But Blanton said later there was no question whether he was healthy enough or strong enough to pitch another inning. And while he finished with 94 pitches, he said he entered the night feeling capable of throwing more than 100.

"I had good arm strength at the end of spring and a little rest is going to make you feel even better," Blanton said. "My arm wasn't the thing that hurt. I felt like the command was pretty good tonight, probably not the best, but definitely pretty good."

Phillies manager Charlie Manuel felt the same way, and said he was confident that Blanton's health would not be negatively affected by another inning (as a point of reference, CC Sabathia returned from an oblique strain after a 1-month stay on the DL in May of 2006 and threw 89 pitches in his first start back, then proceeded to post a 3.16 ERA in 185 1/3 innings over his final 26 starts of the season).

But he also conceded that a more consistent bullpen might have altered his decision-making. Before the game, Manuel said the recently activated Lidge was not ready to resume his role as closer, that he needed more low-pressure outings to refine his command and velocity and that Jose Contreras would likely be his closer. J.C. Romero's exact availability - he has pitched in just three games since he was activated on April 22 - was also unclear.

Blanton started the seventh, but allowed a leadoff home run to pinch-hitter Nick Stavinoha, then a pair of singles to Skip Schumaker and Albert Pujols bracketed around a deep fly ball to Ryan Ludwick.

With runners on first and second and the Phillies down, 2-1, and Blanton having thrown 94 pitches, the Phillies called on Figueroa.

Figueroa, mostly a long reliever and starter throughout his career, had recorded his first career save against the Giants over the weekend in a wild extra-inning victory, but allowed one run in the process and saw another one eliminated at the plate on a great tag by Brian Schneider.

Yesterday, he allowed a three-run, two-out double to David Freese that broke the game open.

Manuel said the decision was made partly because of Figueroa's success against the Cardinals (five hits in 27-career at-bats). Who was waiting behind him is unclear. Contreras was the presumed closer, except Manuel said later that Lidge might have gotten the call in a save situation. Romero, he said, was an option against a lefty in the eighth. Danys Baez was also presumably available, although Manuel did not explicitly say so.

Blanton picked up the loss, finishing with four runs on 10 hits in 6 2/3 innings.

"If our bullpen is full, if we had everybody down there ready, who we are supposed to have and stuff like that - I don't know if I can answer that or not," Manuel said. "I don't know what I would've done. At the same time, you can go ask Joe, I think he did pretty good. He felt OK."

And that, coupled with Lidge's strong inning of work in a non-save situation, might have been the biggest victory of the night.

For more Phillies coverage and opinion, read David Murphy's blog, High Cheese, at http://go.philly.com/highcheese.