Phillies Notes: Oswalt is placed on the DL

In what was hardly a surprise, the Phillies placed Roy Oswalt on the 15-day disabled list Friday, meaning the 33-year-old righthander will miss at least three starts.

Oswalt left Thursday's game at St. Louis in the second inning with lower back pain. He is scheduled for an MRI on Monday to determine the severity of a condition that forced him onto the DL from April 27 to May 16 and has hindered him in recent years. An MRI last season while Oswalt was with Houston showed two degenerating disks. His career could be in jeopardy if Monday's MRI finds that the disks are bulging.

Phillies manager Charlie Manuel said Kyle Kendrick most likely will fill Oswalt's spot in the rotation.

Righthander Scott Mathieson was called up from triple-A Lehigh Valley to take Oswalt's place on the roster.

Oswalt conceded after Thursday's game that his back has been bothering him for a while but that he tried to pitch through it because he didn't want to be labeled a quitter. Manuel said Oswalt kept telling him he was feeling well enough to pitch.

In eight starts since he came off the DL in May, Oswalt went 1-5 with a 4.06 ERA. Before that, he was 3-1 with a 3.33 ERA in five starts.

Asked whether Oswalt returned too soon after his previous stint on the DL, Manuel said: "I don't know, because he always wants to pitch and he always says he can go and wants to go."

Mathieson, 27, returns to the Phillies bullpen after a solid stretch in the minors, where he allowed two earned runs in his last 182/3 innings. He has pitched 13 games for the Phillies in his career, including eight starts, and is 1-4 with a 7.07 ERA in 42 innings.

Backup catcher Brian Schneider was activated after spending six weeks on the DL with a strained left hamstring and was in the starting lineup for Friday night's game against Oakland at Citizens Bank Park.

Schneider, 34, appeared in seven games with Reading during a minor-league rehabilitation assignment, three at catcher and four as a designated hitter.

"I felt a lot more comfortable the last couple of games," Schneider said, adding that his main concern was overcoming the psychological hurdle of testing the hamstring at full speed.

"I scored from second base and passed the test," he said.

Dane Sardinha, who backed up Carlos Ruiz during Schneider's absence, was sent to Lehigh Valley.

After hitting .121 (4 for 33) in 10 games while batting fifth, Placido Polanco moved up to his familiar No. 2 spot in the lineup Friday. Manuel had dropped the struggling Polanco to fifth with the idea that cleanup hitter Ryan Howard would see more strikes.

Polanco went into Friday's game hitting .359 out of the No. 2 slot, but he has struggled through June. He was batting .321 when the month began but went into Friday's game at .288.

The Phillies gave J.C. Romero his unconditional release. The lefthander had been designated for assignment on June 16. Romero passed unclaimed through waivers. . . . Manuel dropped a not-so-subtle hint that the Phillies are not selective enough at the plate. "Our need is to get strikes to hit, especially when ahead in the count," he said. . . . The Phillies have scored no more than three runs in 40 of their 77 games.

Roy Oswalt to miss three starts after being placed on the DL. E9.