Phillies Notes: Phillies' Oswalt ready to get back on track

CLEARWATER, Fla. - Roy Oswalt knows he was lucky and unlucky in the same instant.

He was lucky because the line drive off the bat of Tampa Bay's Manny Ramirez in the fourth inning of Wednesday's Grapefruit League game against the Rays did not leave the Phillies righthander more seriously hurt.

Oswalt, struck on the neck just below his right ear, had a former teammate who was not nearly as fortunate.

"I actually had a good friend [who] got hit in the neck - Mike Coolbaugh - that used to play with us with the Astros," Oswalt said Thursday. "We used to play cards all the time together in spring training."

Coolbaugh, after a brief big-league career and long minor-league one, became a coach in the Colorado Rockies organization. In the summer of 2007, he was struck by a line drive in the neck and killed while coaching first base for the double-A Tulsa Drillers.

That incident is the reason that base coaches are now required to wear helmets at all levels of professional baseball.

The outcome was much better for Oswalt, who said he expects to be ready to make his final start of spring training Monday against Houston.

"I actually slept pretty well," he said. "I was a little bit stiff this morning."

Oswalt said "everything looked good" on the CAT scan he underwent after the game.

"I'll probably take [Thursday] off and try to throw [Friday]," he said.

Oswalt said he felt unlucky because Ramirez hit an inside two-seam fastball that he thought had zero chance of coming back at him.

"Most of the time you throw in like that, guys don't hit them toward you," he said. "That's the first time I've ever seen a guy hit one like that back toward the mound."

Oswalt remained on the ground for a while after being struck, but he had a smirk on his face when he finally got up.

"I've been in a few fights in my life and been hit pretty hard, but that one right there stunned me a little bit when it first hit me," he said. "When I first got hit, you kind of ask yourself: 'Did you just really get hit right there?' It kind of surprises you more than anything, and then you don't know what to do. Do you need to get up real quick? So I just kind of stayed there and asked [trainer] Mark [Andersen], 'Can I get up?' He made me stay down for a little longer."

Oswalt, who had struck out the side on 10 pitches in the second inning, actually lobbied briefly to remain in the game.

"I asked them how many pitches I got and they said, 'You've got enough for today,' " Oswalt said. "The outing actually went well. It was the best I've thrown this spring."

Oswalt said his wife Nicole was spared the agony of the incident because she did not know about it until after it was clear that the pitcher was fine.

"She didn't know anything about it," he said. "She was doing school stuff at home [in Mississippi]."

After the Phillies' 7-3 exhibition loss to Minnesota, manager Charlie Manuel gave his first strong indication that Ben Francisco will be his primary rightfielder when the season begins.

"The big test is going to be when we give Benny a chance to play at the major-league level," Manuel said. "I mean, he's played some. He's had some chances to play . . . but the big test will be when we put him out there in big-league games and let him go a while and find out what he can do."

Third baseman Placido Polanco, out since March 11 with a hyperextended left elbow, thought he was ready to play Thursday, but the Phillies decided he should take one more day off. Manuel said Polanco would return to the lineup Friday against Atlanta.

"I'll still have five or six games left to get ready," Polanco said. "I thought I was playing [Thursday], but getting an extra day just to make sure everything is OK always helps."