Get_the_title returning ID only?

Noobie question I suppose. I’ve got a custom page template (using Thesis) that is trying to grab recent posts:

foreach($lastposts as $post) : setup_postdata($post);
    $post_id = $post->ID;
    $post_date = get_the_date($post_id);
    $post_title = get_the_title($post_id);
    $post_url = get_permalink($post_id);
    $post_excerpt = get_n_char_excerpt($GLOBALS['blogright_excerpt_length'], $post->post_content);
    ?>
            <li><span class="storydate"><?php echo $post_date ?></span><span class="storytitle"><a title="<?php echo $post_title ?>" rel="nofollow" href="<?php echo $post_url ?>"><?php echo $post_title ?></a></span></li>
    <?php
    if ($current_article_num < $article_count)
        $current_article_num++ ;
endforeach;

The “$post_title = get_the_title($post_id);” is returning a number (a post ID?). I want to format the date as “Month Day, Year”.

I tried using “post_date = get_the_date($post_id);” and it returns a date with *everything* (e.g. 2011-09-22 15:02:15).

Any ideas on how I can get what I want: “Day Date, Year” format?

Thanks in advance,

David