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Well, as fun as last night's game was to watch, this afternoon's was just the opposite. Joe Blanton needed only 88 pitches to throw a complete game shutout in a 4-0 Philadelphia victory over Atlanta.
According to our good friend Jacob Peterson, the last time the Braves saw fewer pitches in a nine-inning game was in 1999 against the Pirates and Sidney Ponson when they saw just 86 pitches.
Philadelphia got things going in the first, scoring the first run of the game thanks to a Hunter Pence sacrifice fly to make it 1-0. That would be all the Phillies would get off of Braves starter Randall Delgado until the seventh inning.
In the seventh, Delgado left a curveball out over the plate to Laynce Nix, who crushed it to dead center for a solo home run. That made it a 2-0 game.
Delgado left after the eighth, but he did pitch quite well despite the loss. He finished with a line of 8 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 0 BB, and 5 K's.
As well as he pitched, he couldn't match Blanton, who didn't a walk a single batter and enjoyed the fact that Atlanta had a hard time making hard contact against his pitches.
The Phillies tacked on two more insurance runs in the ninth with a two-run home run off the bat of Shane Victorino against Livan Hernandez. That ended the scoring and made the Braves deficit 4-0.
Blanton finshed things off in the ninth, ending with a line of 9 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 6 K's. Just wasn't Atlanta's day.