The Innings Eater Finally Eats

Teams either in a pennant race or that believe they are in a pennant race tend to make moves to bolster some area of their roster in which a perceived weakness exists. The Brewers landed CC Sabathia. The Cubs traded for Rich Harden. The Mets went for smaller upgrades like Luis Ayala and Fernando Tatis, believing that those underachieving would eventually regress. The Astros turned to the likes of Randy Wolf and Latroy Hawkins. While the Cardinals, as Matthew noted last week, stood pat, the Phillies attempted to fix a problem in their starting rotation by bringing in Joe Blanton.

Now, on paper, Blanton is nowhere near as impressive as Sabathia or Harden, but Phillies fans and the local media justified the trade based on the idea that Blanton is an “innings eater.” He apparently would pitch well enough to keep the team in the game, and long enough to avoid having to overuse a bullpen that the team has been reliant upon. I’m not sure exactly what eating innings means, though. If it means that Blanton would get the definition of a quality start, IE, 6 IP and 3 ER, or that he would go for 7 IP and give up 3-4 ER, that at least sounds plausible and could very well be positive for a team with an offense like the Phillies.

He has been giving up the 3-4 runs consistently, except they aren’t coming in 6-7 innings. Rather, Blanton has not exactly been eating innings in red pinstripes, as he has gone for 59.2 total innings in 11 starts, an average of just over 5 IP/GS. Entering yesterday’s action against the Brewers, just 4 of his 10 starts with the Phillies involved pitching 6 or 7 innings. Interspersed throughout were appearances of 2 IP, 5 IP, 5 IP, 5.2 IP, 4 IP, and 5 IP. When someone advertised with only one real positive trait suddenly fails to exhibit that trait, well, you can imagine what that person looks like to fans.

Most of Blanton’s issues have been chalked up as control problems, as he throws plenty of pitches, is walking more hitters, and is running deeper counts. His BB/9 in Oakland earlier on was 2.48, but it has been 4.39 while on the Phillies. His K/9 has risen to over one more batter per, as well, but not enough to counteract the increase in free passes. All told, his 4.53 ERA/5.36 FIP for the Phillies have not exactly killed them in the standings or severely hindered their playoff chances, but they have not done much to help. Yesterday, Blanton made arguably his most important start of the season, going 7 IP and giving up 3 ER to the Brewers in the first game of a doubleheader that eventually put the Phillies and Brewers into a wild card tie.

He has been just about the definition of average with the Phillies, as his partial season sports a 0.05 WPA/LI, but the fact that he was brought in to “fix” a situation makes his numbers and performance seem much worse. He has not lived up to expectations as an “innings eater” consistently and is nothing more than a fourth starter, but he has kept Adam Eaton out of the rotation, so at least he has that. With several Phillies starters making appearances on short-rest recently, they are going to need Blanton to build upon his performance yesterday or else this will end up being a carbon copy of the 2001-2006 seasons, where the Phillies have great personnel, and plenty of talent, but end up a few games short of the promised land.