It took a couple tries but it finally occurred tonight in Roy Oswalt's first start in Philadelphia since the trade that brought Houston's ace to the city of brotherly love.The Philadelphia Phillies (63-50) won a tight one tonight at the Bank when they beat the Los Angeles Dodgers by a score of 2-0. Raul Ibanez went two for three tonight with an RBI to extend his hitting streak to 18 consecutive games.
The story of the night was Roy Oswalt however and once again he impressed and baffled hitters through seven innings of work as he only allowed five hits and walked two while striking out five in a matter-of-fact manner to get his first win with his new team.
Oswalt wasn't flawless, but he showed tonight how good his B-game can be and it was enough to keep the Dodgers at bay and gave the Phillies a much needed win after the Braves won this afternoon to extend their lead to three games for a couple of hours.
With the Phillies victory, the Atlanta lead in the NL East is reduced once again to 2.5 games.
Oswalt got his seventh win of the season and still didn't get much run support as he's been getting about two runs per start this season and that held true tonight as well, but the offense did enough and the bullpen held up tonight after a horrible showing last night as Ryan Madson and Brad Lidge shut the door in the eighth and ninth.
But, there's another Phillies injury note from this one: Ross Gload went down in the bottom of the sixth as he hustled into second base, the word is that Gload suffered a right groan strain. Gload will be re-evaulated tomorrow. Mike Sweeney took over and eventually scored on a Raul Ibanez double to give the Phils as insurance run.
The Phillies got their 12th shutout of the season and getting back to Brad Lidge, he had a quick 1-2-3 inning and it was a sight to see for Phillies fans who were beginning to wonder about the effectiveness of the back end of the bullpen.
Over the last couple of starts from Oswalt, Phillies fans are really beginning to see just how dangerous the top of the pitching rotation can be. With the way Cole Hamels has performed this season added to the way Roy Halladay has dominated the National League, the performance of Oswalt over his last two starts provides a small idea of just how scary this team will be in the postseason.
Tomorrow night, Joe Blanton will take the mound in the rubber match of the three-game set against the Dodgers looking to build upon his best start of the season last Friday against the Mets when he went seven strong giving up only two runs. Hopefully it'll go as smoothly tomorrow night as it did tonight, but just without injuries.
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