Good Starting Pitching Sighted in the Wilds of St. Louis!

Monday night's matchup didn't look promising for the Phillies. Their starting pitcher, Joe Blanton, had fallen well short of his usual levels of mediocrity, so far in 2009. The Cardinals' starter, Kyle Lohse, had been one of the best pitchers of the young season, sporting a 3-0 record, and a spiffy 1.97 ERA (3.14 FIP). St. Louis had the second-best record in MLB, with a 10-3 mark at home. None of this was a problem for the Phils. The Phillies won, WFC-style, combining strong starting pitching, timely hitting, good defense, and a shutdown bullpen, in their 6-1 win over the Cards.

In his Phillies career, Joe Blanton has only seen the elusive seventh inning in three of his seventeen regular season starts. The veteran hurler has maniacally chased his goal, a terrifying quest that would have driven others to the point of dementia. Monday night, Blanton continued to wager his very soul in pursuit of his obsession.

Against the Cardinals, Blanton's odds seemed rather bleak. However, he entered the sixth inning with a 6-1 lead, and a 95.4% WE. Blanton was tantalizingly close. He stood on the mound, on the verge of corralling his white whale. Though he held St. Louis off the scoreboard in the sixth, his quarry evaded him. In leaving the bases loaded, Blanton had reached one-hundred and one pitches. He would not return for the seventh inning. He had achieved a quality start of the non-quotation mark variety. Blanton's performance was, arguably, the finest by a starting pitcher in the history of the 2009 Phillies. But this was all of little solace to the bulky pitcher, as his goal, which had been within his grasp, had again disappeared into the abyss.

Former Phillie Kyle Lohse had been offered three years, and twenty-one million dollars, to re-sign with Philadelphia after the 2007 season. He declined, preferring to test free agency. Less than a month before the 2008 season began, he signed with St. Louis for one year, and four and a quarter million dollars. It was a tragic miscalculation. (At least until he signed a four year, forty-one million dollar extension, six months later.)

Lohse had pitched like a ten million dollar pitcher in 2009. Until Monday night, when he put up numbers that would be expected of, well, Joe Blanton. The Phillies scored six runs off Lohse, knocking him out of the game with one out in the fifth inning. On a night when Phillie pitching didn't allow a homer, an occurrence as unusual as a narwhal sighting in St. Louis, a Jayson Werth homer, and a Ryan Howard grand slam, knocked Lohse from the game. The Phillies scored all six of their runs on the two blasts, and their bullpen kept the Cardinals' bats silent. The come-from-behind victory (from a 1-0 deficit) put the Phils into the lead in the Wild Card race, which is crucial, as fewer than one hundred and forty games remain.

The Phillies go for the two-game series sweep Tuesday, as they send Brett Myers to face the Cardinals' Adam Wainwright. Yet another odious pitching matchup. But if Blanton can outduel Lohse, Myers can outduel Wainwright. And Chan Ho Park can outduel Johan Santana (Wed, on ESPN!). Well, maybe not that last part. (But, there is still hope that Phillies Manager Charlie Manuel will see reason, and start J.A. Happ over Park.)