Oswalt finally gives what we're looking for

Written by Mike Mariano | 12 August 2010

It took three starts and sellout home crowd, but Roy Oswalt delivered in a big way.  The big deadline acquisition three seven innings of shut-out ball. He allowed five hits, but K'd just as many.  Oswalt demonstrated all of his talents that made his such a desirable commodity.  Oswalt's final pitch hummed 95 mph by Matt Kemp as his 109th pitch of the night.  Some of his brilliance can definitely be credited to the big home crowd:

“There’s a lot more adrenaline than when your pitching in front of 15,000 fans trying to get to the end of the season,” Oswalt said. “I don’t get caught up looking around, but you can hear it’s a lot louder.”

Hopefully Roy can build on this because the Phillies could really use some dominant pitching with half the team on the DL.  If Roy, Roy, and Cole can pitch like this all together, the Phillies will have to be a playoff favorite.  However, we're a long way off before that, gotta make it there first.

Brad Lidge came in for the save and in typical (just kidding) Brad Lidge fashion he only needed 11 pitches to strike out two Dodgers and get a third for the quick save.  Throwing behind his only teammate Oswalt might have gotten him all jacked up, I don't know.  Regardless, it's much more fun no sweating out the ninth every once in a while.

Offensively, Ibanez continues to pace the team, extending his hitting streak to 18 games (Polanco is flying under the radar at 10 games himself).  Just when he looked like Ibanez might be washed-up, he puts this stretch together.  It's not about how you start, it's how you finish and I greatly prefer this sequence to last years.  Ibanez was certainly better in the first half of last season, but peaking through the finish line is what's important.

It's a tough one to lose Ross Gload right now.  He's been playing so well and doing a great job filling in for Ryan Howard.