We don't want to make light of what must surely be some kind of difficult situation for Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Roy Oswalt. Just hours after giving up five earned runs in just three innings of work to the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Phillies announced that Oswalt has left the team for "personal reasons".
According to reports, there's no date yet for his return and his departure has nothing to do with his pitching performance Tuesday night in Arizona. We could speculate that perhaps his uncharacteristically poor outing was due to some kind of distraction going on his personal life, but at this point there's just no information at all on what's going one.
SB Nation's baseball guru, Rob Neyer, suggests that Kyle Kendrick would be the obvious choice to replace Oswalt in the Phillies rotations. Kendrick is in the Philadelphia bullpen, however, and probably isn't prepared to immediate return to a starting role.
The Phillies best farm system candidate would be Eddie Bonine who's pitched well at the Triple-A level and has some major league experience.
Whatever is going on with Roy Oswalt, we wish him the best.