Philadelphia lost their third straight game last night and went quietly without much of a fight with Chris Carpenter on the mound for the St. Louis Cardinals as the Redbirds pulled out a 7-1 victory.
The expectation was for this team to come out of the break on fire because of how they entered it, on a four-game winning streak after a four-game home sweep against the Cincinnati Reds.
Well, they are ice-cold right now as they have lost three out of four to the lowly Chicago Cubs and now two straight to the Cards, the Phils have really slept walked their way to losing five out of six games since the break.
The one positive for the Phillies since the break was Cole Hamels' performance on Saturday in the one win the Phillies have since the All-Star break and everything else has been negative, except for maybe the performance of Ryan Howard.Jamie Moyer injured himself last night after just 18 pitches in the first inning of the 7-1 loss and is expected to be put on the DL, Kyle Kendrick is back in the minors after pitching Home Run Derby for the Cards on Monday night and Andrew Carpenter was brought up and tagged last night and is clearly not the answer either.
A change must be made and it seems that GM Ruben Amaro agrees as the Phillies are rumored to be close to a move for a premier starting pitcher, maybe Astros ace Roy Oswalt.
Oswalt would be a phenomenal move for the Phillies, as he is a top of the rotation starter, not a back-end guy like Amaro and Gillick have been accustomed to getting the last couple years, outside of Halladay and Lee. Adding a second Roy to the staff would be just what the Doc ordered, as Oswalt has been a top-tier pitcher for years and this year he hasn't received the run support as he has a 6-11 record, but an ERA of 3.12, he would be a better acquisition than Cliff Lee would have been because of the fact that he would be under contract for the Phils through 2011.
And he has significant postseason experience with the Astros, Oswalt is 4-0 in the playoffs with an ERA of 3.66, though people might point at his performance in his one World Series appearance and say that he went six innings and gave up five earned runs but he kept his team in the game as the bullpen ultimately blew it. Overall, this guy is an ace and at worst would be a number two here and I think would create the best one-two-three combo in the National League.
Adding Roy Oswalt would instantly create the spark that this team needs right now because right now this team is running on fumes, maybe it's because of losing Chase Utley or maybe it's because of the amount of games they've played the last few seasons, but now is the time we'll see if this team can overcome another huge second half deficit.
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