Aug. 7 -- FORGET FREDDY & THE AMAZING KENDRICK

If Freddy Garcia pitches this season, it won't be for the Phils.

After dispatching minor-league pitching coordinator Gorman Heimueller to watch Garcia throw 30 pitches in an audition for at least 13 teams Tuesday at the University of Miami, the Phillies don't believe the rehabbing right-hander will pitch effectively enough to help them this season after undergoing shoulder surgery late last August.

"He may help someone down the road, but we see him as a guy for 2009," assistant GM Ruben Amaro Jr. told me last night. "He had major surgery on his rotator [cuff] and labrum. And while he looks like he is on the road to recovery, we don't feel he can help us this year."

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It wasn't easy, but the guy who replaced Garcia in the Phils' rotation last season won again last night. Kyle Kendrick navigated jams in each of the first four innings en route to six shutout frames in a 5-0 victory over the Marlins.

Now, other than perhaps Jamie Moyer, there isn't a pitcher that Kendrick admires more than fellow sinkerballer and 2006 NL Cy Young Award winner Brandon Webb. So, as Kendrick walked in from the bullpen after warming up last night, catcher Chris Coste hit the right note while delivering a pregame pep talk.

"Do you think Brandon Webb cares that everybody knows his sinker is coming?" he said.

Coste's message: Like Webb, the sinker is Kendrick's best pitch. So, just because the Marlins hammered it (and everything else he threw) for 4-1/3 innings July 19 at Dolphin Stadium didn't mean Kendrick should go changing his strategy against them last night. He didn't. And he won. In fact, all Kendrick does is give the Phillies a chance to win. After his Houdini act last night, he improved to 10-5 with a 4.37 ERA. He's 2-1 with a 1.45 ERA in his last three starts, and in his 23 starts overall, the Phillies are 16-7.

"In a way, he's slightly anonymous, and it's because he does it in a non-glamorous fashion," Coste said. "He doesn't blow anybody away. He doesn't shatter bats. But all of a sudden, you look up in the sixth inning and you're getting shut out."

And about those skeptics who doubted his major-league staying power?

"Maybe people look at it that way," Kendrick said. "People might think, how am I doing it? Watch the game. I'm 10-5. I think I'm good. I think I'm all right."

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Nice story: Mike Cervenak went undrafted out of the University of Michigan in 1999, so he spent his first two pro seasons in the independent Frontier League. He toiled for 8-1/2 more seasons in the minors, bouncing from the Yankees organization to the Giants to the Orioles despite a solid .294 career average. He finally got called up by the Phillies last month, and last night, in his third major-league at-bat, Cervenak picked up his first career hit and RBI with a pinch-hit single in the sixth inning.

Suddenly, all the late-night bus rides and lousy minor-league hotels must've all seemed worth it.