Phillies: Great players you forgot played in Philadelphia

Roy Oswalt (2010-11)

If you took the first eight years of Roy Oswalt’s career with the Houston Astros and spread them out for the rest of his career, you’re looking at a Hall of Fame pitcher. Oswalt worked as hard and quiet as any pitcher in his era, producing back to back 20 win seasons and winning at least 10 games in 9 of his first 10 seasons.

Drafted in the 23rd round of the 1996 draft by Houston, Oswalt finished in the top-five for the Cy Young in five of his first six seasons. A couple of votes different and he could have multiple Cy Young’s on his resume.

Oswalt pitched for some of the really good Astros teams in the early 2000s including the 2005 team that was swept out of the World Series by the White Sox. After years of winning baseball, the Astros began to decline and started shipping out their veterans to begin a long rebuild.

Leading up to the July trade deadline, Houston traded Oswalt to the Phillies for Anthony Gose, J.A. Happ and Jonathan Villar.

After being traded to the Phillies Oswalt was dominant, winning six games with a 1.73 ERA in the regular season.

In game two of the NLCS against San Francisco Oswalt went eight innings allowing just three hits and one run with nine strikeouts. He held his own in the deciding game six with one earned run allowed in six innings.

Oswalt entered the 2011 season as the number four pitcher behind Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, and Cole Hamels. While he won nine games with a 3.69 ERA, back injuries and a tornado in his hometown disrupted the season.

After that season Oswalt’s career dipped off and he finished with short tenures in Texas and Colorado before retiring. In 2019 he received just four Hall of Fame votes and fell off the ballot.