I jinxed Joe Blanton.

Just as Joe B. started the top of the 1st inning, I leaned over to my Dad from our seats between third base and leftfield and commented on how unflappable Joe Blanton is. In 2008, the Phillies won 9 of Blanton’s 13 starts. In those 13 starts, Blanton gave up 4-5 runs in 5 of the 13 starts, and 3 or less in the other 8 starts. In the playoffs, Joe started one game in each of the three playoff series, and the Phillies won all 3 of those games.

Joe had his worst outing of his Phillies career today, as he put the Phillies in an early hole on the strength of a first inning homerun from Brian McCann. Once the Phillies tied the score in the bottom of the second on a Raul Ibanez 2 run homer, Blanton proceeded to really struggled in the 3rd inning, giving up 5 earned runs before he was chased from the game after the 4th inning.

Blanton’s line: 4 IP, 9H, 7ER, 6Ks, 2 BBs.

The damage was complete once J.A. Happ and Chad Durbin combined to cough up 3 more runs to make the game 10-3 and send some of the Philly faithful to the exits.

Damn, they missed a good one.

The Phillies were generally awful in this series in almost all aspects of the game. Going into the bottom of the seventh, there was little reason to believe that the Phillies would make today’s game competitive, let alone win it.

After a Shane Victorino groundout to start the home 7th, the Phillies were 7 runs down with 8 outs to play with. It didn’t look good. Instead, the Phillies took full advantage of a complete bullpen meltdown by the Braves, moving base to base with an array of base knocks and walks that whipped the remaining fans into a major frenzy.

By the time it was all said and done, Brad Lidge had his first save and the Phillies put a “1″ in the win column.

The majority of fans stuck around to see the comeback, although there was a contingent that left in the middle innings when it looked bleak.

A couple of thoughts from the game.

1. Blanton was hit HARD. There were no cheap hits from the Braves off Joe B. It reminded me of Brett Myers outing on Sunday night.
2. Raul Ibanez looked great. His 2nd inning home run was hit about as high as you can hit a ball and still have it go out of the park.
3. I will discuss the ring ceremony in a post later today, but in short, Adam Eaton is an idiot.
4. Chad Durbin couldn’t find the strike zone to save his life. The guy who threw out the first pitch hit the backstop instead of the Phanatic’s green furry mitts, and even he had a better handle on the strike zone yesterday than Durbin.