"Strangely enough, the rain storms that dealt the Phillies nearly five hours of delays and wreaked havoc on manager Charlie Manuel's pitching staff over the previous two nights, just might have worked out in the end.

At least it appears that way for Roy Oswalt.

The Phillies' starter, originally slated to pitch in Friday night's series opener against the Nationals at Nationals Park, stretched, ran and warmed up only to get bumped when the delay went on for too long. Instead, Oswalt turned in his best performance of the season on Saturday night in the Phillies' 5-0 victory.

"It's the first time I started games back to back," Oswalt said, after the Phillies got their 16th shutout of the season. "If I keep doing that they're going to have to pay me more."

Oswalt pitched eight innings, scattering seven hits with one walk while racking up a season-high nine strikeouts to improve his record to 6-7. More importantly, Oswalt's fastball had the life on it that was lacking before he spent six weeks on the disabled list with a bulging disc in his lower back.

Though he threw more pitches than expected warming the day before a start, Oswalt's fastball topped out at 94-mph and averaged a robust 92-mph. Interestingly, in his eight starts between his two stints on the disabled list, Oswalt was getting swings and misses on just about six percent of his pitches. However, in his three outings after his latest trip to the DL, Oswalt is getting nearly double the percentage of swings and misses (11 percent).

"When he wanted to, it seemed like he could put a little extra on it," Manuel said."