• Shane Victorino landed in Boston, part of a franchise movement to once more fill their roster with scrappy, spitfire players who applaud frantically after reaching base on a close play.  After being weighed at about $6-7 million, Shane naturally will receive $39 million from the Red Sox over the course of three years, setting the financial bar for Hawaiian-born professional ball players.
• 

  “What… are… you…?” Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports

  The painful secret of his Angels fandom was difficult to stifle while in Philly, but Ryan Madson, recovering from a year off with pal Tommy John, is finally able to reveal his horrible true self to the world.  Mad Dog and the Halos reached a one-year agreement worth $3.5 million, with the ability to double that figure by finishing games and staying healthy. A deal undoubtedly concocted by his agent Scott Boras, who may have had trouble handling the paper work with such long, sinister finger nails.  And we forgive him for the “Angels fan” thing.  We all know where Mike Trout’s heart really lies.

• Joe Blanton spent a lot of 2012 wondering how he was going to get out of a jam.  Naturally, he will spend 2013 wondering what to do with his millions upon millions of dollars.  I mean, Joe Blanton is getting paid $15 million over two years for the Angels.  Joe Blanton!  $15 million!!  What the hell!  Are we living in a shadow world?!  Our mayor is hanging out with Big Bird on a Chinese playground, Tibetan monks are setting themselves on fire in record numbers, and the Angels are giving Joe Blanton $15 million to start for them.  As a pitcher.
• The Phillies, desperate for outfielders, let one of their better outfielders go, and now he’s going to waste a year playing for the Cubs.
• The Phillies, now even more desperate for outfielders, are now in possible hot pursuit of Michael Bourn and Raul Ibanez.  One is one of the top names on the market, capable of leading off, and if the current offseason deals are any indication, he is going to be paid a ludicrous amount of money to do so.  The other is a real swell guy.

So, yeah.  A lot of former Phils are assured of at least fairly decent futures.  Which is more than they can say for a lot of the current Phils.

Joe had his one shining moment. Mandatory Credit: Howard Smith-US PRESSWIRE

When I look back at the Phillies’ 2008 postseason run to the title, it seems like it was a very stressful time.

I remember long periods of nausea, panic, and sleeplessness, while at the same time experiencing giddiness, excitement and euphoria.

Such is the nature of playoff baseball in October.

But the reality of the 2008 playoffs is that the Phils really had it pretty easy that year.

Not once did they face an elimination game, nor did they even trail in any series that season.

They beat the Brewers in four pretty easy games, took care of the Dodgers in five, then wrapped things up against the Rays in five as well.

Yet the only game I can really remember feeling totally relaxed watching was Game 4 of the World Series, a.k.a., “The Joe Blanton Game.”

Game 4 is often the most pivotal game of any seven-game series. If a team is up two games to one, a win in Game 4 puts a stranglehold on the series. If the team down two games to one wins, they draw back even and give themselves a 50/50 shot at winning the series.

On this date four years ago, the Phils looked to Blanton, their midseason trade acquisition, to give them that stranglehold.

We were not foolish to have our doubts.

However, that night Blanton brought, as Fox broadcaster Joe Buck put it, “electric stuff” to the park.

Blanton has never been what one would call “electric.” Fat, maybe, but not “electric.”

Yet on that night, one presidential campaign ago, he was awesome.

The Phillies got Blanton that July for three players, Adrian Cardenas, pitcher Josh Outman, and Matthew Spencer, none of whom have had productive Major League careers.

I’m not even sure their minor league careers were worth a dang either.

In Game 4 of the 2008 World Series, Blanton threw six innings and gave up just two runs while striking out seven, and benefited from a huge night from Ryan Howard, who broke through with a two homer game in the Phils’ 10-2 rout of Tampa. The win left the Phils just one win away from a World Series title.

It was a good night.

But what made the game even more memorable, and miraculous, was the work Blanton did at the plate.

That bomb off then-Rays reliever Edwin Jackson put the Phillies up 6-2 in the fifth inning, and seemed to hammer the final nail in the coffin not only for Game 4, but for the entire series.

It was a moment where, perhaps for the first time that postseason, most Phils fans watching thought to themselves, “Hey, I think we’re actually going to win this thing!”

It was a moment where, frankly, everyone should have realized the playoffs are as much about solid hitting, pitching and defense as they are about the baseball angels deciding it’s your time.

Never before, or since, has Blanton pitched that well, and he did it in the biggest game of his career.

As maddening as he could be to watch, however, the trade that brought Joe to Philadelphia turned out great for the Phils. They gave up nothing for him and received parts of five years, and one completely awesome World Series game, from the rotund right-hander.

That’s a good trade, y’all.

And so today, we celebrate one of the biggest games in franchise history and the memory of a young Joe Blanton coming through in the biggest moment of his professional career.

I’m still not 100% sure it actually happened.

Doesn't this kind of look like Joe is preparing to eat something in this picture?: Howard Smith-US PRESSWIRE

It seems that the Phillies and Pirates have switched places defensively.  Over the last few years the Pirates have seemed to play enough crappy baseball to lose games and the Phillies have done just the opposite.  The Pirates committed four errors with two of them leading directly to Phillies runs.  It is nice to watch another team be bad at stuff.

The Phillies jumped out to a four run lead on the unfortunate looking Jeff Karstens in the first inning of tonight’s game.  Jimmy Rollins lead off the game with a double and from that point on Jose Tabata started to throw the ball all over the place.  Juan Pierre moved Rollins to third.  Hunter Pence blooped a single in front of Tabata, who tried to get Rollins at home, but couldn’t.  Carlos Ruiz followed with an opposite field single, scoring Pence and advancing to third on throwing errors from Pedro Alvarez and Tabata.  Shane Victorino singled in Chooch and was knocked in on another single from Placido Polanco who advanced to second on another error on the throw from Tabata.  This sequence looked an awful lot like the old sub .500 Pirates.

Joe Blanton pitched well with the lead.  He gave up a solo home run in the top of the third, but was pretty much around the plate and worked his way through seven innings.  He also tied his season high with eight strikeouts.  When you look at Blanton, it is pretty evident right away when he is going to be effective.  If he is down in the zone with his fastball, he will be good.  If he is up, it is batting practice.

The Phillies tacked on a couple more runs in the third with another Placido Polanco RBI single and in the fourth with an absolute moonshot from Jimmy Rollins.  The Pirate bullpen has been really good this year, but managed to walk in a run in the bottom of the seventh.  This was a stress free 8-3 Phillies win.  As fans, we all really needed to see them play like this after Sundays’ crapfest.  Here’s to hoping that Ultey’s supposed return this week can give the team a boost going into the all star break.

The moment that I knew this was destined to be a Phillies victory was when Chad Qualls got Casey MaGehee to ground out to end the game.  The way that this season has been going for the Phillies’ bullpen, I am pretty shocked that Papelbon wasn’t warming up when Qualls came in the game.

The most attractive play of the game was possibly the longest home run of Jimmy Rollin’s career in the bottom of the fourth inning.  Jimmy got the green light 3-0 and absolutely crushed the living hell out of a fastball, depositing it in the right field bleachers after banging it off the Budweiser sign on the second deck.  Outside of Carlos Ruiz, Jimmy is the best hitter on the team right now.

The hero of the game was Joe Blanton.  He managed to toss seven innings of three run baseball.  He has seven more wins this season than Cliff Lee.  I think that Blanton should be the hero of the game every time he isn’t terrible.  He was not terrible tonight.

The games most hatable villain was Jose Tabata.  He accounted for two of the three Pirate runs and hit a home run off of Blanton.  He also committed two throwing errors leading to a couple of Phillie runs, but he probably contributed the most offensively as well.  This wasn’t a real good one for the Pirates.

Tomorrow Vance Worley looks to get the Phillies a series win against Eric Bedard.