Under Pressure

And now, we discuss the curious case of Brett Myers.

I am honestly at a loss here. My gut instinct is to go Dallas Green on this guy and start questioning his testicular fortitude. I thought of doing the math on what the Phillies are getting for the $8.5 million they are giving to this guy but if he is not putting the effort in, why should I. All I know is that he has 10 wins in his 30 starts. I guess the math is pretty simple on that - $850K per win. The Phillies have won just 12 of those 30 starts. In 10 of those starts, Brett never made it past the 5th inning. The last two games - games in the final 10 games of the season battling the Mets for first place - Brett couldn't finish the 5th inning.

I could slice and dice this team a million ways to explain why it is they fell short of J-Roll's prediction of 100 wins this season. No excuse I can devise is as easy to declare as it is to point the dreaded finger of blame on Brett Myers. He was the opening day starter. I bet no opening day starter (at least no one from teams that were considered contenders) has fewer wins than Myers. To his credit, he manned up and accepted his demotion in July to Allentown with dignity and a sense of purpose. He emerged as a dominant pitcher worthy of the label "staff ace" for the month of August when he went 4 and 1 with a 1.65 ERA.

Since then, however, he has returned to his hideous form from April to July. Maybe he's ailing. Maybe there's trouble on the home front. Who knows? Point is, people scoffed at Rollins bold prediction back before the season began. How was Jimmy to know the staff ace would implode?