PHOENIX -- Just sitting here at Gate A7 in Sky Harbor International Airport, waiting to board a flight to San Francisco and wondering what the heck is wrong with Brett Myers.Myers has no idea.
Honestly, he didn't pitch all that terribly today at Chase Field. His fastball velocity was in the low 90s for most of his five innings, and other than a first-inning home run by Chris Young, the D-backs beat him with a bunch of broken-bat and infield hits. Of course, there were the back-to-back walks to Justin Upton and Stephen Drew to open the four-run fourth inning, and those, more than anything, bothered Myers after the game. But his overall frustration at his 2-3 record and 5.33 ERA in eight starts was obvious.
"I can't put together back-to-back good starts, and I don't know what the problem is," he said. "I made some good pitches they hit. I made some bad pitches they crushed. I don't know. I've just got to try to get through it. Every time I get my rear end kicked it's frustrating. It's definitely not fun, going out there and feeling real good and getting beat up like that."
Catcher Chris Coste's advice to Myers: Don't panic.
"I just hope he doesn't try to reinvent something because the stuff he had today could've easily been one or two runs," Coste said. "There's such a fine line between success and failure. He got two strikes in key situations and just couldn't find that third pitch. He usually can finish off a hitter better than most guys. But I told him, 'Don't think you have to reinvent anything because the same stuff you had today is going to give you eight innings, one run the next time.'"
The Phillies hope so.
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Ryan Howard picked up an RBI single against Brandon Webb in the ninth inning, but in the last seven games, he's 2-for-24 with 12 strikeouts, leaving his average at .165.
So, who's been a bigger disappointment so far, Howard or Myers? Discuss.
Talk to you from San Francisco.
6 comments:
Howard is definitely a bigger dissapointment. Myers never won rookie of the year or a cy young. Myers has never been a solid number 1. But Howard HAS been the best power hitter in baseball.
It's definitely Howard. Some sort of contingency plans must be in the back of Chuck's brain by now... I can't see how you can continue to run out a guy hitting ~.160 and on pace to K 250 times in the 4 hole day after day. The first step has to be to move him down in the lineup. The second step will probably be to cut his ABs down. Maybe the third step is to feign an injury and get him some time off on the DL.
He doesn't seem to be picking up that pitchers are getting him out the same exact way every AB. Off-speed and breaking stuff away, hard stuff up and in.
I guess the slow start last season wasn't because of the off-season frivolities of being the MVP or a back leg injury. I think two years in a row is a bit of a trend...
Definitely Howard. Myers didn't win a $10 million arbitration case.
It amazes me that he won that. I am VERY THANKFUL the Phil's brass held firm on not doing a long-term deal with Howard.
Another vote for Howard.
I don't like to hear either of their whiny quotes, but at least Myers admits he's awful right now, whereas Howard thinks we're only looking at results.
On the contrary, we're looking at the results AND the moping on the field. It's how third graders act when they strike out.
BTW, it's not just that Howard is striking out being the problem. His BABip (Batting AVG on Balls In Play, meaning balls he hits) is sub-.200 as well. So, when he does put the bat on the ball, most times he's rolling it over to 1B and stuff.
I've seen him consistently hit the ball hard in one series... SF at home, where he smoked a ball to CF and Scott Hairston robbed him because has playing with his heels on the warning track. He hit the ball hard in a few other ABs in that series as well, but right at OFers.
Just to play Devil's advocate ... an argument could be made that Myers is the bigger disappointment. 1) He was a first round draft pick. 2) Gillick told the phans that he was not pursuing any starting pitching help because Myers was the best pitcher, open market, tradewise, or in the organization, to help the team. 3) He got the nod as our team ace over Cole Hamels and was ecpected to form a one-two punch similar to Webb and Haren. In defense of Howard, he always has a poor April. Last year he was sub-.200 in April and still belted 42 HRs by the end of the year. Howard will be back in the swing of things by June 1st - Will Myers?
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