When the Phils had to have it from him, Roy Oswalt delivered tonight. He was brilliant, dazzling Giant's hitters through 8 innings in which he allowed just 1 run on 3 hits while striking out 9. Only Cody Ross' 3rd homer of the series in the 5th inning averted a shutout and perhaps even a no hitter. Aside from Roy Halladay's no-no and Cole Hamel's shutout in the NLDS it doesn't get much better than what Oswalt did tonight. That's especially evident when you consider the pressure he was under to do so with the Phils down 1-0 in the series and in a virtual must win scenario. Oswalt didn't just do it with his arm either. He also singled and scored as the Phils offense awakened to the tune of 6 runs on 8 hits and treated the Giants to their first non 1 run game of the postseason.
Early on the Phils had a golden opportunity to get to Jonathan Sanchez right away in the first inning, but Jimmy Rollins bases loaded walk was all they could come up with. The pitching of Oswalt and Sanchez mostly dominated the night from there and it looked like for all the world that Roy would have to throw a shutout to get the Phils the win. Then Ross homered in the 5th to tie it at 1 and panic briefly set in at the Bank. Shane Victorino quickly wiped the sweat off everyone's brows in the home half of the 5th with a leadoff double and run scored on back to back sac flies. Sanchez hung in there and kept it 2-1 through a scoreless 6th but he finally ran out juice in the 7th. There after Oswalt leadoff with a single Sanchez was removed from the game. The Giants bullpen proceeded to implode from there.
Oswalt moved to 2nd via a bunt and then surprisingly scored on a 1 out single by Placido Polanco, after running threw a stop sign at 3rd. From there the Phils executed a double steal before struck out to put 2 on with 2 out for Jayson Werth. Werth was intentionally walked to bring up the struggling Jimmy Rollins to face righty Santiago Casilla. That forced JRoll to turn around and bat lefthanded, which is generally his weaker side, especially season. At this moment though it wasn't weak at all as JRoll got ahead of Casilla and then ripped a bases clearing double to blow the game open. Behind 6-1, the Giants did not resign themselves to loss, but instead kept fighting. It didn't matter though as Oswalt held them off in the 8th and Ryan Madson worked around a walk and a single to close them out in the 9th. Tied at 1-1, the series now shifts to San Francisco for game 3 on Tuesday as Matt Cain and Cole Hamels faceoff.
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Now thats more like it. I knew the offense would show up sometime and they did and Roy Oswalt was back to his dominant form and with Cole Hamels on the mound next game I cant help but think the Phils will be up 2 games to 1 but I suppose we'll just have to wait and see about that.
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