Questions before and after Blanton's start

SAN FRANCISCO - It wasn't Joe Blanton's fault that not everyone was comforted by the prospect of seeing him on the mound in the most important game of this Phillies season.

Maybe it would be OK, the thinking went, if the Phils were up, two games to one, in this 2010 National League Championship Series. Then, what harm could come from using their No. 4 starter, the fourth Musketeer in a top-heavy rotation?

But down, 2-1? With Tim Lincecum due to pitch a possible clincher in Game 5? With Roy Halladay, even a Halladay on short rest, available?

Charlie Manuel was asked about the decision nonstop leading up to Wednesday's game.

And Wednesday, after neither Blanton nor the bullpen could hold a lead in the Giants' 6-5 Game 4 win that has this Phillies season on life-support, the manager was asked again.

"I've answered that question - how many days now?" Manuel said. "Blanton pitched the game, and actually we had a chance to win the game. We didn't get it done."

As it turned out, neither Manuel nor Blanton's detractors got exactly what they anticipated in the most entertaining game of the series so far. The phlegmatic righthander was neither terrible nor terrific.

"I felt pretty decent," he said, his voice barely a whisper in the silence of the losers' locker room. "But I felt like I gave a couple of runs away."

He lasted only 42/3 innings in a game when the Phils' bullpen was as chilly as the night, failing as it did to hold a one-run lead and allowing the Giants to end up with one of their own.

Manuel, of course, would have been delighted if his starter had gone five or six and gotten him to his rested 'pen. In the end, the manager probably let Blanton's night stretch a batter too far.

"I was disappointed in my last inning," Blanton said. "We'd just had a big inning and taken a lead, 4-2."

With the Phillies finally have gotten some momentum for the first time here, he needed a shutdown inning in the bottom of the fifth. Instead, he came out and walked the first batter he faced, Andres Torres.

"I have to make him swing the bat," Blanton said.

In the first inning, the much-rested Phils starter looked as jumpy as AT&T Park's bleacher fans, who bunny-hopped on the metal stands as much for the warmth as the noise it created.

He yielded a one-out single to Freddy Sanchez, which wouldn't have been bad if he could have kept his pitches in Carlos Ruiz's glove.

But Ruiz would have required a mitt the size of the one beyond AT&T's center-field stands on a couple of Blanton's first-inning throws.

Sandwiched around his strikeout of Aubrey Huff, he uncorked two wild pitches on 0-2 counts that pushed Sanchez to third.

"I had an 0-2 on Huff and I tried to make sure I threw the sinker down," Blanton said. "I tried to get him to roll over, but I buried it a little too much in the dirt. Then I had Posey 0-2 and tried to bury a slider.

"Both of them, I kind of buried them a little too much."

From there, San Francisco's second baseman scored the game's first run easily on what would be the first of Buster Posey's four hits.

Blanton hadn't started since the regular season's final week, and it appeared that the long layoff and the chilly temperature hurt his control, though he denied either was a factor.

"No," he said. "I felt good."

He hit Cody Ross to start the second, but got out of the inning with strikeouts of Aaron Rowand and pitcher Madison Bumgarner.

Then in the third, with the temperature dropping and both the wind off San Francisco Bay and the pressure rising, he allowed a two-out single to Huff and an RBI double over Ben Francisco's head in left-center to Posey.

That was a 2-0 edge, a sizable margin given how the Phillies had been swinging. But this time, with a 30-minute uprising against Bumgarner in the fifth, they overcame it. Blanton helped considerably with a perfect sacrifice bunt after Francisco and Ruiz opened the inning with singles.

With Manuel chomping even harder on his gum, Blanton started the fifth by walking Torres. Then, with two outs and the lefthanded-hitting Huff batting, Manuel stayed with his starter and paid the price.

Huff singled in the run that made it 4-3.

Posey was up next, and there was no way Blanton was going to face him. Manuel replaced him with Jose Contreras.

Blanton said he was fine with the early hook.

"Maybe in the regular season it's a different situation," he said, "but you've got to play that game like it's a do-or-die situation."

And now, with Halladay definitely on the mound, it's death that's the more imminent concern for the Phillies.

"We fought to the end," Blanton said. "We didn't really lose. We just ran out of innings. It's not over yet. Yeah, they're just one game away. But we've got to keep fighting."