Phillies fall to Marlins, 4-3

The Phillies' bullpen gate swung open and J.C. Romero, without directions, found his way to the mound.

It would instead be the Phillies who lost their way and another series opener.

After two games in which they didn't stir, the relievers were called upon earlier than expected on a chilly Friday night when starter Roy Oswalt exited prematurely with a back injury. The bullpen coughed up a seventh-inning advantage and ultimately a game.

Florida scored twice in that inning to grab the lead, and its bullpen managed what the Phillies' couldn't, a scoreless four innings, in a 4-3 Marlins victory at Citizens Bank Park.

Oswalt left with what the Phillies termed a lower-back strain but what he called mid-back spasms. The pitcher said that it wasn't the same lower-back injury that sent him to the disabled list in 2009 and that he was eager to make his next start.

"Most of the time when I have trouble, it's the lower back," said Oswalt, who has been bothered by back problems several times in his career. "This is definitely middle."

Former Phillie Greg Dobbs, who after signing a minor-league deal made the big club with a torrid spring (.453), drove in two runs for the Marlins with the winning hit - a seventh-inning single off loser Danys Baez.

The Phillies managed six hits and hit several balls hard early off Florida starter Javier Vazquez, but managed just two runs in the first and one in the fifth.

"I felt like we had some chances to take advantage of him, but we kind of let him get away," Phillies manager Charlie Manuel said of Vazquez. "He locates the ball now. He doesn't have the fastball he used to have."

The defeat was the fourth straight for the 10-4 Phils in the opening game of a series. Saturday night, if the rain the grounds crew prepared for by laying down postgame Diamond Dirt and covering the infield with a tarp doesn't prevent it, the struggling Joe Blanton will start.

Oswalt, in short sleeves on a night so nippy most of the 45,667 fans covered up their players jerseys with sweatshirts and jackets, was throwing heat in the early innings.

Aggressively challenging Florida's aggressive hitters, the righthander retired the first 11 Marlins he faced, a streak that ended when Hanley Ramirez walked.

Oswalt had felt the back tightening in the fifth, then experienced a spasm as he ran to first on a sixth-inning bunt. He told pitching coach Rich Dubee, who informed Manuel.

Not long after Oswalt went out to warm up for the seventh, Manuel and team trainer Mark Andersen joined him at the mound.

"Dubee told me, 'His back's hurting him,' " Manuel said. "Then when he started to warm up you could tell something was bothering him. . . . There was no sense me leaving him in the game."

In 2009, Oswalt, then with Houston, left two games early with the lower-back problem. After the second, on Sept. 16, he didn't pitch again.

Friday night, he had thrown 89 pitches and seemed intent on aping rotation-mates Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee, who had pitched complete-game victories in Washington the previous two nights.

The Phils scored twice in the first, on a leadoff walk by a suddenly patient Shane Victorino, a Jimmy Rollins double, Ryan Howard's sacrifice fly, and Raul Ibanez's single.

Ibanez had another two-out hit to drive in the Phils' final run in the fifth, but left the game later when he banged his knee into the left-field wall. "He just tweaked it," Manuel said.

Logan Morrison homered for Florida to start the fifth, his fourth. And back-to-back doubles by Chris Coghlan and Omar Infante gave them a second run in the sixth.

Romero, who replaced Oswald, was gone after Morrison, the one hitter he faced, reached base on a ball that deflected off the pitcher's glove. "It was like a change-up [back to him]," said Romero, who hadn't pitched in a week. "It bounced off the back of my glove."

Baez entered and immediately walked Gaby Sanchez and allowed a single to John Buck to fill the bases. Manuel had the lefthanded Antonio Bastardo ready in the bullpen, but opted to let the righthanded Baez face lefthanded pinch-hitter Dobbs.

The ex-Phillie singled in two runs to push Florida in front, 4-3. Dobbs is now 8 for 18 as a Marlin.

"He was ready," Manuel said of Bastardo. "But as soon as I bring Bastardo in with the bases loaded, here comes [Wes] Helms. Helms is hitting lefties good. Last year he hit .324 or something. He's patient. . . . It was either Bastardo on Helms or Baez on Dobbs."