Fastball

When Roy Oswalt had subjected the 191st consecutive sellout at Citizens Bank Park to enough carnage for one night, the fans cheered Friday when Phillies manager Charlie Manuel emerged to yank one of the Four Aces. When the 6-5 defeat by the last-place Florida Marlins ended, Manuel had enough concern to find his losing pitcher and ask the question on everyone's mind after 52/3 listless innings. Are you healthy?   Oswalt's verbal answers were affirmative, but the results on the field were a resounding no . Just six days earlier, he had regained form as a dominant strikeout pitcher able to blow a fastball by hitters in any count.

MOOSIC, Pa. - Roy Oswalt was encouraged by his second rehabilitation start and expects his next start to be for keeps with the Phillies. Oswalt pitched six innings and allowed seven hits and two runs, both earned, as the Lehigh Valley IronPigs beat the host Scranton Wilkes-Barre Yankees, 4-2, in the first game of a doubleheader on Monday at PNC Field. He struck out four and walked two, throwing 94 pitches, 61 for strikes. When asked if he sees any reason why he shouldn't start in one of the weekend games in San Francisco against the Giants, Oswalt, not a man of many words, replied, "I don't think so. " Rehabilitating from a back injury, Oswalt consistently threw in the low 90s, topping out at 92 m.p.h.

LAKEWOOD, N.J. - In his quest to come back from the strained rotator-cuff injury that has sidelined him for the season and re-establish himself as the Phillies' closer, Brad Lidge turned in his second solid rehab effort for the Class A Lakewood BlueClaws Thursday night. Lidge worked the first inning against the Kannapolis Intimidators. He threw 13 pitches - 10 for strikes - and retired two of the three batters he faced on swinging strikes, the other on a groundout he fielded. Lidge expects to pitch again for Lakewood in 2 days out of the bullpen.

IN THE SECOND inning of his 11th start in the Year of the Pitcher II, Roy Oswalt settled down. Good thing. This was his sixth start since the foreshadowing game in Arizona where he went out there without a fastball and the D-back broadcasters were effusively praising his "new changeup. " The new changeup fooled hitters used to his high cheese and biting 12-6 curve until he started getting whacked around. Roy left after three innings with five earned runs on his line and his second regular-season loss as a Phil.

CLEARWATER, Fla. - It was 2-for-1 drink night at Bright House Field as it is every Thursday when the Threshers play a home Florida State League game. But for five innings, it was far from a normal night on the farm. A few more fans than usual dotted the blue seats for Thirsty Thursday. Four TV cameras transmitted the action to the Philadelphia area, where fans could watch three rehabbing Phillies - Chase Utley, Roy Oswalt, and Carlos Ruiz - compete for Clearwater against players in their professional baseball infancy at single A. The results were a mix of promise and concern.

CLEARWATER, Fla. - Put one Phillies All-Star player in a Florida rehab game, it's a note on the end of a game story. Put two All-Star-level players in a Florida rehab game and ballwriters are detoured during a Phillies road trip and dispatched to the scene. Put three All-Star-caliber players in the same rehab game, including the starting battery, and it's a Comcast SportsNet telecast. They fly banners in Tampa International Airport: "Welcome Rehabbing Phillies. " While it was cool to be at Bright House Field for that great Thursday-night institution - two-beers-for-the-price-of-one night - this was about the chance to see the progress made toward a return to action by long-term DL inhabitant Chase Utley and his short-term DL brethren Carlos Ruiz and Four Aces righthander Roy Oswalt.

SPRINGTIME IS here, exhibition baseball is rounding third and the regular season is on deck. Baseball has been a rich subject for movies since the game's (and cinema's) earliest days. On occasion, baseball players themselves took a swing at being Hollywood stars. Most were strictly minor league as actors, but a few nearly hit a home run. Here's a lineup of baseball giants who tried their luck in front of the camera. Babe Ruth The Sultan of Swat was the subject of a dreadful 1948 biopic, "The Babe Ruth Story," starring a totally miscast William Bendix, but the real Ruth appeared in several films and shorts during his years with the New York Yankees.

CLEARWATER, Fla. - The Phillies made a short road trip to Dunedin on Tuesday and crossed off another Grapefruit League game from the schedule. The more relevant event took place in Clearwater, where the guy charged with putting the finishing touches on the anticipated works of art by the four aces climbed back on the mound for the first time in 11 days. After being shut down by biceps tendinitis following a March 11 outing against Baltimore, Brad Lidge was encouraged by his one-inning stint against a group of Pittsburgh Pirates minor-leaguers.

TAMPA, Fla. - Do not be fooled. Roy Oswalt might be a 33-year-old man who has not publicly ruled out retirement at the end of this season, but he still has the same gunslinger mentality that carried him into the big leagues 10 years ago. "You gotta pitch off your fastball," the veteran righthander said yesterday as he stood in the visitors' clubhouse at Steinbrenner Field. The only member of the Phillies' rotation who did it more often last season was Cliff Lee. Roy Halladay has his cutter.

Here are the last words from the Phillies' clubhouse late Friday after their 7-4 win over Cincinnati in Game 2 of the National League division series. Cuban Missile Crisis The Phillies' first encounter with hard-throwing Cuban lefthander Aroldis Chapman turned into an adventure - or, to be more precise, a series of misadventures for the Cincinnati Reds. Thanks to a hit batter, a fielder's choice that did not account for an out and two errors that led to two runs on the same play, the Phillies scored three times to turn a 4-3 deficit into a 6-4 lead against Chapman in the bottom of the seventh inning.