Rich Hofmann: Oswalt does his part, other Phillies aces must, too

COMPETITION IS WHAT drives them all, in all of its different forms. Some race for wins, some for money, some for baseball immortality. Some do it loudly and outwardly, while others quietly smolder. They all do it, though. They all compete, and compete well, or they don't last for long in the nation's nicely upholstered clubhouses.

Roy Oswalt competes better than most. It says so on all of the statistics Web sites, and it has for years. Last night, he offered a glimpse of why. For him, it seems to be a pride thing, most of all. For Oswalt, the Phillies' newest starting pitcher, there are all of the typical drives and there is one more: the competition within the pitching staff itself, the competition among him, Roy Halladay and Cole Hamels.

"Every time you go to the park, you feel like you're going to win . . . It's just how bad we're going to win by," Oswalt said, on the night he won his first game for the Phillies, 2-0 over the Los Angeles Dodgers.

"We've got a great team here. I like being on a staff with Halladay and Cole - it makes you try to be even better. In '04 and '05, with Roger [Clemens] and Andy [Pettitte], the same thing. I was going to try to not let those guys outdo me. You kind of feed off each other. Hopefully, we can push each other into the playoffs."

Oswalt did last night what Oswalt must do. Because Oswalt, Halladay and Hamels will either win the third consecutive National League pennant for the Phillies or it won't be won.

That was the unspoken deal the Phillies made at the trade deadline when they acquired Oswalt from the Houston Astros and turned the one-two at the top of their starting rotation into a three-punch combination. It was a fair calculation, but it was just that - a calculation, a balancing of the sport's time-worn equations. You borrow from this side, you add to that side, and you hope that you have done enough to make sure everything is equal in the end. You hope.

Seven innings pitched, zero runs allowed. That was Oswalt's work product against the Dodgers. The seven-innings part is an absolute necessity - for him, for Halladay and for Hamels. Given the injuries, given everything, it is the only way this team will see the second week of October.