Back That Thing Up/Beat Me in St. Louis: Cardinals 12, Phillies 2

one of the more memorable days in philly sports in a long while

It’s quite a strange record they’ve put together this year.

Oswalt bears some culpability too, don’t you think?

Does Oswalt have degenerative discs? I haven’t read that anywhere.

How? If he retires because his back is injured to the point where he would not be able to pitch again (whether this season or ever), wouldn’t the Phillies still be on the hook for the remainder of the guaranteed portion of his contract?

He retires, unless the prognosis is “he needs season ending surgery” and he opts not to have the surgery at all, which, is probably unlikely just from a pain management and every day relief point of view.

Insurance would pick up a good portion of the rest of his contract, which would free up cash, but not help with salary cap issues.

He wants a ring bad. if the prognosis is bad, it there is even the slightest glimmer of hope that he can be back by the post season, hes gonna try and make that happen.

But Oswalt is also a very stand up kind of dude. Just the kind of guy who WOULD retire midseason and forfiet millions of dollars because its the right thing to do for the team.

Lets just hope its not as bad as we’re dooming and glooming it to be.

That’s still got to be the best rotation in the league. It sucks that were down to Three Aces™, but even without Little Roy, we’re still in good shape.

Big spender. I want pictures of Cookies with a Red Lobster bib on.

Not a good comparison.

No. They gave up 10 to Washington on May 31.

I’m with Whole Camels on this. Having known several people with degenerative disc disease that had to get hardware in their backs for it colored my initial take, and with the Flyers nuking the team I was more predisposed to assume the worse. I think Oswalt suffers from nondescript lower back pain like so many people do which isn’t to say it isn’t a concern but I don’t think that means he can’t rebound from it (we’ll find out soon enough if it’s worse) – instead the Phillies need to stop bringing their pitchers back too early from the DL.

You think the Phillies should have traded him even though they might not have had a trade partner? OK.

It is not that easy- even if the Phillies had wanted to trade him and been able to find a trading partner, Oswalt has a full no trade clause in his contract.

Nah. She took it all before she got to the set. Besides I doubt she’d share.

let’s give ’em a mulligan for last night…who the fuck could resist watching Ed Snider going all out Grand Moff Tarkin.

Not this front office. They are immersed in their geeky computer numbers and peripheral statistics.

If the information about his back is correct, then I’;m not really sure how much blame actually falls on anyone, and how much of this is just time catching up to Oswalt.

Until you see what the deal is with the MRI monday, it’s all speculative but to me, it sort of plays out like this:

1. Oswalt tweaks his back
2. He tries to throw through it like he normally does.
3. It doesnt work.
4. He goes on the DL to rest.
5. It feels better and he thinks he can play through it, like he has for years, knowing that possibly the only way to correct the issue is surgery that is very risky and career threatening, or he’d have had it by now. But its something thats gonna affecct him all season.
6. He can’t play through the pain.
7. He has some tough choices to face.

I guess what I’m getting at is this isn’t necessarily an issue of mismanagement, and another few weeks of rest would have made any difference, nor would pitching through it make it any worse.

I think its just as much coincidence that the Contreras and Blanton situations (which I think are gross mismanagement and more blame to Charlie and Dubee) are similar.

Unfortunately we’ll never know.

6.