The Roy Oswalt contract hunt is over, and baseball's last free agent finally has a home: With the Texas Rangers, a team that spurned him by seeming to suggest he'd be bound for the bullpen earlier in the season but now, with Neftali Feliz hurt, suddenly has a perfect spot. T.R. Sullivan of MLB.com reports the deal is worth $5 million and that Oswalt won't pitch until well into June—a little later than he was hoping for going into the season, which began three months after he was supposed to have signed with the St. Louis Cardinals.
Oswalt, 159-93 in a career spent mostly with the Houston Astros, was 9-10 with an ERA of 3.69 in 23 starts as a member of the Philadelphia Phillies' all-star rotation last year. But he's just a season removed from one of the highest strikeout rates of his career, so few would be surprised if he came back looking very strong for the first-place Rangers after his minor-league training sessions are finished.
The Texas Rangers swooping in ends the most recent round of speculation—that Roy Halladay's injury would lead to a Roy Oswalt/Philadelphia Phillies reunion.