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WASHINGTONStrangely enough, the rain storms that dealt the Phillies nearly five hours of delays and wreaked havoc on manager Charlie Manuels pitching staff over the previous two nights, just might have worked out in the end.
At least it appears that way for Roy Oswalt.
The Phillies starter, originally slated to pitch in Friday nights series opener against the Nationals at Nationals Park, stretched, ran and warmed up only to get bumped when the delay went on for too long. Instead, Oswalt turned in his best performance of the season on Saturday night in the Phillies 5-0 victory.
Its the first time I started games back to back, Oswalt said, after the Phillies got their 16th shutout of the season. If I keep doing that theyre going to have to pay me more.
Oswalt pitched eight innings, scattering seven hits with one walk while racking up a season-high nine strikeouts to improve his record to 6-7. More importantly, Oswalts fastball had the life on it that was lacking before he spent six weeks on the disabled list with a bulging disc in his lower back.
Though he threw more pitches than expected warming the day before a start, Oswalts fastball topped out at 94-mph and averaged a robust 92-mph. Interestingly, in his eight starts between his two stints on the disabled list, Oswalt was getting swings and misses on just about six percent of his pitches. However, in his three outings after his latest trip to the DL, Oswalt is getting nearly double the percentage of swings and misses (11 percent).
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When he wanted to, it seemed like he could put a little extra on it, Manuel said.
Considering that Oswalt was not throwing that ball as hard (averaged 91-mph on fastball) headed into the game and he threw it just as often as any other start with a season-high 115 pitches, Saturdays effort is a pretty good sign.
Even better, says Manuel, is the way Oswalt has been moving around. Not only has Oswalt been digging deeper to find his pitches, but also hes been able to field his position and run the bases. That kind of stuff matters, too, Manuel said.
The biggest thing I noticed about him is hes moving better, body-wise, Manuel said. Theres a lot more energy there and hes free to compete and run and that shows that hes feeling better and hes healthy.
Actually, Oswalts health has sparked the rest of the ballclub, too. During the spring training the hype around the Phillies centered around the starting pitching depth with Oswalt following Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee and Cole Hamels with Joe Blanton anchoring the No. 5 spot. But when Blanton and Oswalt went out with injuries, Vance Worley and Kyle Kendrick helped pick up the slack to help the team rocket out to the best record in baseball.
But now that Oswalt is back, the Phillies added more depth to the strongest facet of the club and it might even be stronger than before. With Hamels skipping a start to rest up and Oswalt finding his groove late in the season, the Phillies starters could be relatively fresh come October.
With the way Worleys pitching, and Kendrick too, we have six guys pitching for us. That gives us a lot of depth, Manuel said. You can never have enough pitching.
Said Oswalt: Its should be interesting. We have five guys that can throw out there at any timecant forget about Worley.
Meanwhile, the Phillies opened the scoring in the fourth inning when Wilson Valdez cracked a two-out, two-run triple to right field. They added three more in the sixth when Hunter Pence opened the inning with his 15th home run of the season and Jimmy Rollins brought in two more with a two-out, bases-loaded single.
As a result, the Phillies improved to 81-43 to maintain a 7 games lead over the Braves in the NL East. With 38 games remaining in the season, the Phillies also lowered the magic number for clinching their fifth straight division crown to 30.
E-mail John R. Finger at jfinger@comcastsportsnet.com