With help from offense, Oswalt leads Phillies over Dodgers

LOS ANGELES - A chunk was missing from the pitching rubber, and the balls he hurled to the plate felt slicker than usual. But when Roy Oswalt walked off the field with one out in the seventh inning at Dodger Stadium yesterday afternoon, he did so once again with the Phillies in position to win.

And once again, win the Phillies did, beating the Dodgers, 5-1, for their fifth victory in the last six games, and their sixth straight with their new ace righthander on the mound.

Unlike Oswalt's first outing of this seven-game road trip, when he was pulled after eight strong innings only to see the Padres tie it in the ninth, he got more than a little help from his friends, as Jimmy Rollins and Shane Victorino hit home runs and Chase Utley went 3-for-5 with three doubles and two RBI.

Rollins homered on the second pitch he saw from lefty Clayton Kershaw, just his second home run from the right side of the plate this season. Victorino, a fellow switch-hitter whose struggles have been limited to the left side, followed suit in the second inning, leading off with a blast that snapped a 30-game homerless drought. Rollins' home run was his first off a lefty since he took Pittsburgh's Justin Thomas deep on July 3. Victorino's home run was his first of any kind since July 16, when he hit one off Cubs lefty Ted Lilly at Wrigley Field to eclipse his previous career high of 14.

Rollins, who entered the day with six hits in his previous 37 at-bats and a .241 average for the season, attributed some of his struggles to a difficulty in timing the foot tap in his swing.

"Until today, especially righthanded, I haven't been getting my foot down," Rollins said. "I can't explain it. I really can't. But before the game, [bullpen coach Mick] Billmeyer came up and said, 'Hey, get your foot down.' And the first pitch of the game, I just practiced getting my foot down. And the next pitch, if it's there and my foot's down, I'm swinging. And it worked."