Oswalt sets tone as Phillies shut down Padres

SAN DIEGO - Natalie Gulbis gripped the club, bent her legs, and unleashed a lacquer-smooth swing that sent the white ball soaring from home plate to dead centerfield, where it exited Petco Park over the black batter's eye. The LPGA star was hamming it up for the cameras during a pregame promotion for Taylor Made, the San Diego-based golf-club maker that had recently erected an 80-foot golf club alongside the foul pole in rightfield.

At the time, you might have wondered whether you had just witnessed the only ball to leave the field of play during this four-game series, which featured two teams who entered the evening ranked 11th and 12th in the National League in home runs. Six hours later, though, the Phillies were the proud owners of a 3-0 victory over the Padres that materialized thanks in part to a pair of second-inning home runs.

In a cavernous ballpark with two struggling offenses facing formidable rotations, the first team to three runs should stand a good chance of winning. That was the formula the Phillies used last season, when they needed just 11 runs to sweep the Padres at Petco Park. And that was the formula they employed last night, getting home runs from Ben Francisco and Brian Schneider in the second inning before turning the bulk of the work over to the right arm of Roy Oswalt.

It wasn't quite as simple as the final score indicated: the unavailability of setup man Ryan Madson caused some interesting relief deployments in the final three innings, including the seventh, when David Herndon allowed two two-out baserunners and Antonio Bastardo walked the bases loaded before getting Alberto Gonzalez to fly out. Bastardo, who figured to see an increased role when fellow lefty J.C. Romero went down with a calf strain over the weekend, remained in the game and pitched a scoreless eighth inning, allowing a leadoff single to Jason Bartlett before retiring the next three batters, two via strikeout.

Jose Contreras then recorded his fifth save, on a full-count strikeout with two on.

But it was Oswalt who set the tone, rebounding from the back spasms that brought a premature end to his previous start and holding the Padres to one hit in six scoreless innings. The righthander, who improved to 3-0 and lowered his ERA to 1.88, showed some rust early on but finished with seven strikeouts and two walks.

The Phillies afforded Oswalt a lead for most of his outing, as Padres starter Mat Latos labored through his fourth appearance of the season. The offensive game plan was to make the righthander work. A shoulder injury shortened his spring training and forced him to start the season on the DL, and he seemed to wear down in the later stages of his first three starts. By the time Latos exited the game with one out in the fifth inning, he had thrown 107 pitches, walking five with seven strikeouts (three of them against Ryan Howard, who is now 0-for-8 with eight strikeouts and a walk against the Padres righty).

The Phillies' offense spent most of the night squandering scoring opportunities, going 1-for-9 with runners in scoring position while stranding 12 runners.

It failed to capitalize on a couple of Padres miscues in the first inning. First, Latos dropped the ball while attempting to throw to first after fielding a dribbler from Placido Polanco. Then, after Polanco stole second, Padres leftfielder Ryan Ludwick was unable to make a charging catch of a soft fly ball by Jimmy Rollins, sending Polanco to third with one out. But the Phillies were unable to push the run home, as Howard and Raul Ibanez both struck out swinging at sliders.

In the second inning, the Phillies punished Latos for leaving a couple of pitches up in the zone, first a hanging slider that Francisco crushed to dead centerfield for his third homer of the season, then a belt-high fastball that Schneider parked in the seats in rightfield for his second. The two solo shots gave Oswalt an early 2-0 lead to work with.

They added a run in the third inning, which proved to be more than enough to improve to 12-6. The Padres have now been shut out five times this season and have scored three or fewer runs in 12 of their 19 games.

For more Phillies coverage and opinion, read David Murphy's blog, High Cheese, at www.philly.com/HighCheese. Follow him on Twitter at

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