There was quite the controversy brewing at The Bank last night when Tampa Bay’s manager, Joe Maddon, told home plate ump Tom Hallion that he believed Blanton had splooge on his hat.

Blanton responded:

“It’s nothing,” Blanton said. “I rub my balls up with whatever I rub them up with, and you rub it up and get it on your hand. I’m constantly trying to get moisture, and just touch my hat. It’s nothing sticky. Anybody can go touch it. It’s basically just dirt from my balls that gets… over time, over so many starts, I don’t change my hat. It just gets rubbed on the hat.”

So there you have it, Joe Blanton did not have splooge on his hat last night.

Maddon questions spot on Blanton’s hat | Phillies.com

(Disclaimer: Some parts of Joe Blanton’s quote were fabricated. But honestly, not as much as you might think)

After the jump, Big Brown’s 2-run BLAST from the 8th

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To welcome our newest tubby pitcher into town, the creative minds at The Fightins went ahead and did Joe Blanton the solid of redesigning his website to make it more Phillies-friendly.  I imagine being a starting pitcher in the major leagues is taxing — ya know, with only 4 days of downtime in between starts — so I completely understand why Joe’s fancy MLBlog hasn’t been updated in almost a month and still displays the Oakland A’s logo along with the saying, “My official MLBlog as we try to bring A’s fans a world championship in 2008.”  As a blog connoisseur, I find that unacceptable.  So we fixed it.

Below you will find both versions (click on them to enlarge, dummy); on the left is the current non-updated version, to the right is tweaked by The Fightins to fit his “innings eater” persona.

And now, without furthur ado, the new & improved Joe Blanton MLBlog:

Big Joe’s Bluegrass Blog | MLBlogs

Count me among those who remain skeptical about the Joe Blanton trade. Yes, we got someone who can eat up innings (and can’t possibly stink any worse than Adam Eaton right now), and we didn’t lose anyone we couldn’t afford to lose in the deal. Blanton’s 2008 salary is also four times less than A.J. Burnett’s, so that doesn’t hurt, either.

One has to wonder if perhaps Pat Gillick acted too quickly in order to get someone, anyone into the Phils’ starting rotation before the trade deadline. After Sabathia and Harden were taken off the market, there really wasn’t much left to choose from, and change for its own sake isn’t always a good idea.

No use arguing the point now, I guess. Blanton’s our starter and just about any move that sends Eaton to the bullpen is a good one. Still, I think J.A. Happ deserved a chance to show what he can do as a #4 or #5 starter.

He was good — not great, but good — in his two big-league starts, pitching 11 innings with eight strikeouts and a cumulative 3.27 ERA. (He also walked eight and finished with a WHIP of 1.45.)

In his minor-league start for the IronPigs last night, Happ struck out 12 batters in a seven-inning shutout victory over the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees. Once you’ve been up to “the show,” once you’ve seen the bright lights of the big city, it’s tough going back to the farm (system).

My hope is that we’ll see Happ on the mound at Citizen’s Bank Park before the end of this season, and definitely by the beginning of next season.

(Our homies over at The 700 Level have more to say about this latest development.)

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