Phillies head into Game 6 with ultimate competitor Oswalt

IF YOU WANT to be a truly great team, you have to win no matter the obstacle. You have to win when a lesser team might give in to a situation that, from the outside, seems too difficult.

There is a champion every year. Greatness comes to those teams that do it over time.

These Phillies won the last game in 2008. They will always have that World Series. They won the 2009 National League pennant. They have won those four consecutive Eastern Division championships. They have won six playoff series in the last 3 years.

This group of players is really on the cusp of greatness. To get there, they need to beat the Giants tonight at Citizens Bank Park (7:57 start time). And they need to beat San Francisco again tomorrow night. Then, they need to beat the Texas Rangers in next week's World Series. That would qualify as true sports greatness.

The 2010 Phillies need to win six more games. What has made them so special is they just try to win the next pitch, the next at-bat, the next moment. Win enough of those moments and you get another chance at winning the last game.

It helps that the Phillies will start Roy Oswalt in Game 6 against the Giants' terrific lefty Jonathan Sanchez. Oswalt has never lost at CBP - not with Houston, not with the Phillies. And Oswalt owned Game 2 in this National League Championship Series.

Oswalt said he would have no issues coming back after throwing 18 ninth-inning pitches in Wednesday's numbing Game 4 loss. He wanted the ball that night. And he wants it now.

"I didn't want to get the loss, for sure," Oswalt said yesterday afternoon in the Phillies' media room. "But you never know when you're going to get back here. So that's one of the reasons I wanted to be in the game the other night. I don't know how much longer I'm going to play. [I] may not get to this spot again. So I'm going to try to do everything possible to get to that final game."

After an overnight flight from San Francisco, Phils manager Charlie Manuel had a ton of adrenaline. When asked whether he was confident in Oswalt, Manuel responded with an 872-word stream of consciousness answer that began with this: "Yes, I'm confident with that. But what I think about it, like our philosophy, I preach it every day, and sometimes I think it's got to sound boring to people because when you come to the ballpark we come to the ballpark on that day to win that game."

That is this team. And that is why Oswalt, the perfect final piece for another potential championship team, is the perfect pitcher for a game that has to be won.

"I try to pitch every game like it's the last one," Oswalt said. "You never know, you're never guaranteed the next day. So it's going to be no different. Trying to attack hitters and make them beat me, not trying to put guys on. No different than any other game. It's a must-win game, but I treat every one of them like a must-win."

When Manuel was asked why his team seems to play its best when the stakes are highest, he needed a mere 709 words to explain. Those words of wisdom included the baseball lifer's code of conduct: "You can sit there and you can cry and you can whine, you can drop your head and you can quit. That's basically what you're talking about. But there is nothing we can do about it. There's nothing you can do about what you did yesterday. But you can do something about it today."

The Phils did not whine about their ninth-inning Game 4 loss. They played better in Game 5 and got the series back to South Philly.

Now, they get Oswalt. The manager seems about as concerned as the pitcher about that Game 4 relief appearance.

"I think he's got a rubber arm, he's kind of different in his style and he's got a loose arm," Manuel said. "That's why he gets his rise on his fastball."

Some play long toss by getting into it gradually. Not Oswalt.

"He goes out there, gets a ball and starts gunning it right away," Manuel said.

Roy Oswalt will be gunning it in Game 6. He made it to the 2005 World Series with the Astros. They did not win a game against the White Sox.

If the Phillies are going to get to Game 7 tomorrow, they will need another big game from one of this decade's best pitchers. Then, they will have a chance to get back to the World Series for a chance to create a lasting baseball legacy to go with that 2008 championship that the region had been seeking for only a quarter century.

Roy Halladay is a finalist for the players' choice awards for outstanding pitcher in the National League. The other finalists are Colorado's Ubaldo Jimenez and St. Louis' Adam Wainwright. *