Joe Blanton used a mix of fastballs and changeups to shut down the Detroit Tigers, leading the Philadelphia Phillies to a 4-0 victory Thursday. Blanton has focused solely on the fastball-changeup combination in his first two spring starts before he incorporates breaking pitches into his repertoire. So far the results have been promising: Blanton held the Tigers to three singles in four innings of…

Joe Blanton used a mix of fastballs and changeups to shut down the Detroit Tigers, leading the Philadelphia Phillies to a 4-0 victory Thursday. Blanton has focused solely on the fastball-changeup combination in his first two spring starts before he incorporates breaking pitches into his repertoire. So far the results have been promising: Blanton held the Tigers to three singles in four innings of…

The Phillies’ past offseason was one of the more exciting in recent memory.

The acquisitions of starting pitcher Roy Halladay and infielder Placido Polanco make the two-time defending National League champions even better.

However, the splash that these two moves made will not help the Phillies in the place where they were the weakest: the bullpen.

The bullpen was the Phillies’ biggest weakness last season and was one of the main reasons that they lost to the Yankees in the World Series.

Yet for some reason, general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. made little effort to improve the bullpen.

Closer Brad Lidge blew 12 saves last year, including Game Four of the World Series. During the season, Lidge insisted that he was healthy enough to pitch, only spending time on the disabled list because of a minor knee problem. It was not until the offseason that Lidge revealed he was pitching through the pain the entire season.

While Lidge had “minor” surgeries on his knee and elbow, there is no guarantee that Lidge pitching through the pain did not have any long-term effects. There is a real chance that Lidge continues to struggle.

Amaro’s solution was signing journeyman reliever Danys Baez. While Baez has had a lot of success in his career as a closer (he has 105 career saves), he hasn’t recorded more than nine saves since 2005, and he has never been the closer for a team that finished with a winning record. It makes you wonder how competent he would be as the Phillies’ full-time closer if Lidge continues to struggle in 2010 for whatever reason.

The other pressing issue for the Phillies is the lack of healthy or proven left-handed relievers available to Charlie Manuel. It is more alarming than the potential issues that the Phillies face at the closer position. 

J.C. Romero is the best lefty in the Phillies’ bullpen. However, Romero is coming off a very disappointing 2009 season that was cut short by an elbow injury in early June, which made the bullpen very thin.

Now, as Opening Day approaches, reports are that Romero has not fully recovered from the elbow injury and will most likely be on the shelf when the season starts. This is especially worrisome since the Phillies did not retain lefty Scott Eyre, who posted a 1.50 ERA last year for the team.

With Romero still recovering from injury and Eyre off the roster, the next best option for Manuel is Antonio Bastardo. While Bastardo pitched well last year, he has very limited experience at the big league level, especially in relief, pitching only two games out of the bullpen.

Bastardo also does not have the type of stuff that you look for out of a left-handed reliever. He relies on his fastball and does not get very many ground ball outs.

The Phillies could be in a lot of trouble if Romero or Bastardo proves to be ineffective. It is a problem that could have been easily rectified by Amaro Jr. this past offseason. He could have made a more concerted effort to retain Eyre or maybe added a free agent reliever. Either would have greatly solidified the Phillies’ bullpen going into the 2010 season.

Obviously, the Phillies’ bullpen could be in a lot worse shape, but that’s not the attitude of a team looking for its third straight appearance in the World Series. It is not going to be very much fun for fans to look back at the offseason and ask what Amaro Jr. could have done to solidify the Phillies’ bullpen.

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During the better part of the year and a half prior to December 2009, many baseball fans were kept guessing as to whether or not Roy “Doc” Halladay of the Toronto Blue Jays would be dealt from the team and where it would be.

For most, it was a question of “when” not “if” arguably the best pitcher in the game would land with a contender sporting a fat wallet.

On Dec. 16th, the speculation ended as the 2003 AL Cy Young Award winner was traded to the Philadelphia Phillies in a multi-team trade that also saw former Phillie ace Cliff Lee sent to the Seattle Mariners.  

It was hard to believe that there was actually a player out there worthy of sending 2009 postseason hero Lee packing. But you’d be hard-pressed to find a Phillie fan who had an airtight argument against the deal.

On a team that finished under .500 five of the 11 years since his rookie season, Halladay has averaged 13 wins with 134 strikeouts per year with the Blue Jays. 

While the numbers may seem average upon first look, one must read between the lines.

If there has been one knock on Halladay through the years it has been that he has seemed to be injury prone throughout his whole career. He has missed huge portions of several seasons due to injuries; perhaps the most notable being a broken leg suffered in 2005 after being struck by a hard line drive in early July, ending that campaign.

However, when studying the six seasons in which Halladay started more than 30 games, the numbers jump to an average of 18 wins and 176 strikeouts per season. All of this while pitching in the toughest division in baseball.

Against the odds, facing teams such as the Yankees and Red Sox several times in a season, Halladay has still managed to elevate himself to the status of one of baseball’s elite players.

Now he comes to the National League. The league dubbed by some sports people as the “B-League” of baseball.

We have seen the scary surges of American League players turned National League after two trade deadline deals during the past two years.

Who could forget Manny Ramirez’s domination of the National League West after being traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers from the Red Sox in 2008? After hitting .299 with 20 homers and 68 runs batted in in 100 games with the Red Sox, Ramirez’s average rose almost 100 points higher to .396 while nearly equaling his run production at 17 long balls and 53 driven in in only 53 games after moving to LA.

More recently, the previously mentioned Cliff Lee managed to equal his win total in about half as many games with seven in the American League (22 starts) and seven in the National League (12 starts) after being dealt from the Cleveland Indians to Philadelphia at 2009’s deadline.

In addition, Johan Santana, perhaps the only other starting pitcher on Halladay’s level, saw his ERA sink to 2.53 in 2008 with the Mets after it was up at 3.33 the previous season with the Twins.

If history continues to repeat itself, then Roy Halladay’s move to the National League from the American League may not make him scary good, it could make him horrifying good.

Consider that the Philadelphia Phillie lineup is comparable to any of the American League’s top lineups.

It could easily go toe-to-toe with those of the Yankees, Red Sox, Rays, and Rangers.

Combine that with the fact that opposing National League lineup’s simply don’t score as much as American League ones do, and Halladay could give baseball one of the best seasons for a starting pitcher that we have seen in decades.

To predict a 30 win season may be going a bit overboard. But what the Phillies could potentially get out of Roy Halladay could go above and beyond whatever we saw from him in Toronto (and he was pretty darn good in Toronto).

26 or 27 wins with a sub-2.00 ERA may not be out of the realm of possibility, bringing to mind the likes of pitchers such as Gibson, Koufax, Carlton, and Blyleven. Seriously.

Despite power numbers being down in recent years, we are still very much in an age of the hitter here in 2010.

However, whether you are a Phillies fan or not (I am not), I strongly encourage you to watch as many Phillie games in which Halladay is pitching as you can this season.

Sorry Mets, Braves, Marlins, and Nats. This trade may very well have given us something that many of us have never seen before.

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Making his first Grapefruit League start for the Phillies on March 4, Roy Halladay never found himself in a jam.

At least not until the game was over.

Halladay threw 24 pitches, 21 strikes in two hitless innings against a stripped-down version of the Yankees (Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Mark Teixeira and Curtis Granderson stayed home) before a sold-out crowd at Bright House Field in Clearwater, Fla. Among those in the stands: His 9-year-old son.

How would Halladay explain why his son missed school?

“I don’t know what we called him in with,” Halladay said with a smile, “but the cat might be out of the bag now.”

Braden Halladay, the staunchest advocate of his dad’s decision to approve a trade to the Phillies in December, was not going to miss this.

Philadelphia Phillies closer Brad Lidge faced hitters Wednesday for the first time since offseason surgeries on his right elbow and right knee. Lidge threw 21 pitches to Ozzie Chavez and Chris Duffy at Philadelphia's training complex in Clearwater, Fla. The 33-year-old right-hander then went through a round of fielding drills.

In 1972, the Phillies Hall of Fame pitcher Steve Carlton went 27-10 and won the Cy Young Award on a bad Phillies team.

The team went 59-97, but on every fourth or fifth day when Carlton pitched, the Phillies were a different team and played like champions.

Fast forward to today, as another Cy Young Award winner Roy Halladay took the hill against the Atlanta Braves in pre-season action Tuesday night. Halladay pitched three scoreless innings, giving up three hits, striking out five and walking none.

The Phillies won the game, 7-4.

Now this is preseason, but it ain’t 1972.

The Phillies are three-time National League Eastern Division champions, back-to-back National League champions, and have been in the last two World Series.

Their big offseason splash was the trade for Toronto ace Roy Halladay and the departure of another Cy Young Award winner Cliff Lee to Seattle.

This Phillies team is loaded, especially on offense and anything less than another NL East crown and a trip to the National League Championship Series would be considered an off season.

Halladay, for one, has not disappointed.

His cut fastball is nasty, approaching the plate like a fastball, only to befuddle the batter as the bottom drops out.

He made Braves’ catcher Brian McCann look like a double-A callup on a curveball that McCann was way out in front of.

Ouch.

The big question to me is what to do with Phillies outfielder Jayson Werth.

Werth’s two-run home run in the second inning should be a sign of what could be a monster season.

Domonic Brown is hitting .412 this preseason and John Mayberry Jr. hit a two-run single in the sixth to break the game open, 7-4.

Brown’s progression in particular could spell the fate of Werth, who could be playing out the final year of his contract.

If Werth has a monster first couple of months this season, the Phillies would have to make a serious offer to re-sign him for at least three years.

The All-Star break will be too late.

Werth turns 31 in May and three years might be too much for the Phils to commit to long term.

Werth, Ryan Howard, Chase Utley, Shane Victorino, Jimmy Rollins, and newcomer Placido Polanco will pace the offense.

Roy Halladay will set the pace for the pitching staff.

The Braves, Nationals, and Mets all made off-season moves to strengthen their clubs.

The Marlins did little, but kept a young and talented nucleus intact.

Last night’s win against the Braves was great to watch on MLB Network and felt awfully familiar to Phils’ fans: take an early lead, fall behind by a run or two, then in the last four frames crack the game open and win going away.

Injury, luck, fading and rising stars always play a part in any baseball season.

It should be a fun ride for Phillies fans. Get your popcorn …

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This time last year, Billy Wagner was facing little leaguers in Virginia and recovering from elbow surgery. The former All-Star closer, signed by the Braves in the offseason, retired all three batters he faced Tuesday night in Atlanta's 7-4 loss to the Philadelphia Phillies and said he felt comfortable for the first time this spring.

Javier Vazquez's first pitch was all too familiar to Yankees fans: a home run. After that, the right-hander provided a glimpse of what the Yankees are hoping to get from him in his return to New York: a consistent starter who will take some of the pressure off the rest of the rotation. Much to the delight of Philadelphia's vocal fans — and some mocking Yankees supporters — Jimmy Rollins…

For the first time in three games, Dominic Brown's name was not in the Philadelphia Phillies' starting lineup when it was posted in the team's clubhouse on Monday. But with the way the top prospect has played in the first week of exhibition baseball in Florida, Brown is primed to be an everyday staple in the Phillies' star-studded batting order in the near future.