Midnight’s Children

The Phillies got just what they were hoping for when they traded for Joe Blanton a few weeks ago. He was able to give the team 7 strong innings last night as the Phillies beat the Cardinals 2-1. Blanton allowed 1 run on 4 hits and 2 walks his best outing so far as a Phillie. If he can continue to give the team innings like this the trade will turn out to be a positive. They will need his best pitching to keep the gap growing between the Phillies & the Marlins and Mets.

The Phillies only managed 4 hits in the game but 2 of them were of the long ball variety. Greg Dobbs hit his 4th of the year in the 3rd inning and Ryan Howard hit his 31st in front of his famly in St Louis in the 4th inning to give the Phillies a 2-0 lead. That would turn out to be all the support Blanton would need. The bullpen continued to sparkle as Romero & Durbin combined for a scoreless 8th inning and Lidge came on in the 9th inning to record his 27th consecutive save. The lead is now 1-1/2 over the Marlins and 2 over the Mets who lost for the 2nd night in a row to Houston. The rubber game of the Cardinal series is tonight with Brett Myers 4-9 vs Todd Wellemeyer 8-4. Myers is looking for another strong effort to follow his win against the Nationals earlkier this week. The Phillies are hoping he can repeat his performance.

Well its stretch time for the Phillies. The Mets are not playing good at all and the Phillies are on a roll. They have played all seven games this week picking up 6 more wins! They been the Mets (for another sweep), the Cardinals and the Nats. Things are swinging in their favor.

The Phils take the first 2 games after the All-Star Break behind the pitching of Kendrick and Hamels. The Beat the Cardinals back to back by scores of 13-3 and 10-4 at home. Things are looking good as the bats are alive.

The series clincher is always the hardest to win but the Phils pulled it out. Behind Cole Hamels, a rain delay and clutch 8th inning hitting by Victorino the Phillies pulled out the 3rd game of this series 5-1. The bad news is that Lieber will also be put on the DL for a while but this may be an opportunity that forces the Phillies to go with more youthful pitching. The ageless wonder Moyer got the other victory in this series and the best offensive performer in the entire series had to be all the big guns in the Phillies lineup: Utley, Rollins, and Howard.. They all took turns stepping up.