That's a message nobody wants to hear. Pitching injuries happen, but Phillies fans came into this season with visions of sugar plums - and another world championship banner - dancing in their heads. Oswalt, who hasn't lost a regular-season game since his first start with the Phillies last July, plays a prominent role in those hopes and dreams. Last night, he retired the first 11 batters he faced and didn't allow a hit until Logan Morrison led off the fifth with a home run.
It didn't help that, after Oswalt left, the bullpen promptly gave up the lead and the Phillies lost, 4-3, in front of an announced sellout of 45,667 at Citizens Bank Park.
Officially, Oswalt left the game with a lower back strain, although he later said the tightness was more in the middle. The 33-year-old spent time on the disabled list with hip and related back problems in 2006, 2008 and 2009, and pitched through some back discomfort last season with the Astros, but insisted this was different from what he's experienced in the past.
Time will tell, but he said there's a chance he'll be ready to make his next scheduled start Wednesday against the Brewers.
"I should be. I hope," he said. "I'll just take 2 days off and then throw a bullpen and see where I'm at. The good thing about a back spasm is it's not anything as far as a disk or anything like that. It's just a muscle that tightened up for some reason. The doctor said I might just have tweaked it a little bit. It's not to the point where it's unbearable, but it's to the point where I didn't want to keep pushing it and then maybe miss my next start."
