Blanton's blast makes believers

When Ryan Howard hit a three-run homer to left field, you started to believe.

When Joe Blanton (!) hit a home run a couple sections over, you knew.

This is happening. It's really happening. The Phillies are one win from their first World Series championship since 1980.

Blanton's job in Game 4 was simple enough. Give his team a chance to win and pass the baton to ace Cole Hamels for the first possible title clincher since 1980.

(Do you think Hamels was watching all those balls fly out and wishing his teammates would save a couple for him tonight?)

Blanton did his job from the mound, which was all anyone could reasonably expect.

It was thoroughly unreasonable to expect the soft-bodied righthander - a career American Leaguer until being traded here from Oakland in July - to contribute offensively. In his at-bats with the Phillies, Blanton has looked mostly clueless.

In the sixth inning last night, he looked Ruthless.

As in Babe Ruth.

With reliever Edwin Jackson simply trying to get the automatic third out wearing Blanton's uniform, the pitcher lofted a dare-we-call-it majestic fly ball toward left-center. Outfielder Carl Crawford turned and ran toward the fence as if he'd heard a child call for help. Then he stopped abruptly, joining 49,003 fans and 24 stunned Phillies in wonderment.

Joe Blanton hit a home run.

"I just close my eyes and swing hard in case I make contact," said Blanton, who reckoned his last homer came his senior year in high school.

And when did he open his eyes?

"When I went out and had to throw the first warm-up at the start of the next inning," Blanton said.

It was the first World Series home run by a pitcher since 1974, when Ken Holtzman hit one for the Oakland A's (Blanton's old team). It was the first World Series homer by a Phillies pitcher, although Steve Carlton hit a three-run bomb against the Dodgers in the 1978 National League Championship Series.

Not only had Blanton never hit a major-league home run before, he'd never even managed an extra-base hit. He was 2 for 33 lifetime before this.

Blanton watched the ball go out with a strange expression on his face. He'd seen this before - indeed, twice on this very night - but he'd always been the guy on the mound. This time he was rounding first and he seemed to enjoy the view much better from that angle.

The view from the dugout was pretty good, too.

"I jumped up too fast," Howard said. "I almost passed out. I thought that ball had a chance. When it went out, I had to grab the rail because I almost passed out."

"Anything can happen when you swing a piece of wood," Jimmy Rollins said.

Blanton pitched superbly, allowing just a couple of solo home runs. The Rays found his stuff so filthy, they figured the same was true of the baseball. After the second inning, Rays manager Joe Maddon asked plate umpire Tom Hallion to check the ball for foreign substances.

Maddon, like the rest of the world watching on TV, noticed a dark patch on the bill of Blanton's cap. Oh, and that Blanton seemed to touch his cap frequently. Oh, and that the ball seemed to be moving a bit more than natural.

In the World Series, there are roughly 217 cameras pointed at you, most set on super-ultra-zoom. It's pretty tough to get away with doctoring a baseball.

"It's nothing sticky," Blanton said of the smudge. "They rub the baseballs. It's just dirt from the balls that gets rubbed on my hat. Anyone can come and touch my hat."

With suspicious minds, it's no wonder the Rays struck out seven times in six innings.

The Fox cameras caught Blanton in the dugout, hugging Brett Myers. You could make a case for Myers as MVP of the Phillies postseason. He has pitched well and hit even better in wins against Milwaukee and the Dodgers. Also, he has served as a kind of mentor to Blanton and Ryan Madson, both of whom have been excellent. Now Blanton has even outdone Myers at the plate.

"He hit the crap out of that ball," said Myers, who advised Blanton to keep his swing short and try to hit the ball up the middle. "Well, I don't think that got through to him."

It must be noted: Maddon did not ask Hallion to examine Blanton's bat.

There was a time you might not be thrilled to hear that Myers was taking guys under his wing. But it seems to be working out just fine this October.

Come to think of it, everything is pretty fine this October. The Phillies are one win away from their parade, from your parade.

If Joe Blanton can hit a home run, then anything is possible.