Feb. 28 -- WERTH, ROMERO & MORE (UPDATED)

BY SCOTT LAUBER

CLEARWATER, Fla. -- Another busy day here, so let's get to it:

1. Jayson Werth has been scratched from the lineup because of what the Phillies are calling "soreness in the back of his right shoulder." Werth said he tweaked the shoulder on a batting-practice swing yesterday, and that wouldn't be a big deal except that Werth hasn't played in the first three spring-training games. Werth, Charlie Manuel and Ruben Amaro Jr. had insisted that Werth isn't injured, and the Phillies are saying his shoulder injury isn't related to the general "not ready to play" explanation that had been provided for his earlier absences. Werth and the Phillies are hoping he'll be ready to play Monday against the Blue Jays in Dunedin.

2. The union meeting lasted about two hours. As you can imagine, J.C. Romero's suspension -- and the larger issue of which supplements should or shouldn't be taken -- was a major topic of conversation, as we detailed in our Sunday MLB notes. Union chief Don Fehr's main message: Be very careful. "You are not safe, period," Romero said.

Essentially, Fehr confirmed Romero's claim that the union advised that any over-the-counter supplement purchased in the U.S. wouldn't result in a positive drug test. Fehr was singing a different tune today. Asked if he thought the union had let Romero down, Fehr said, "I guess it depends on what you mean. What we do is we give the best information we have, and up until these particular products, we had no reason to believe that there would essentially be products that violated the law that were sold over the counter. That turned out to not be the case. So now, the advice that we give has changed. We had been hopeful the arbitrator would understand and accept that for reasons related to the facts of the case. He didn't."

3. I asked Fehr about the slow-developing free-agent market. He tap-danced like Fred Astaire, steering clear of using the word "collusion" or suggesting that anything is afoot. But, clearly, he wasn't happy that many players wound up getting paid less than they expected, and in some cases (Manny Ramirez), remain unsigned. "It was, in many respects, slow, intermittent, uncertain, and ended up in a number of cases, with results that would not have been predicted going in," Fehr said of the market. "And so, all I can say about that is, as we do every year since the middle 1980s, we'll look hard at the market. Where you have a lot of people unsigned for a long time, a change in patterns, you give it more scrutiny when you look at it. When, and if, we reach a conclusion, we'll tell everybody. But that process is not complete yet and won't be for a while. But please don't draw any inferences other than we're looking at it. That would be unfair at this point. I'm not making accusations."

4. Pat Burrell will talk to reporters after he comes out of today's game.

(Updated, 2:05 p.m.): Burrell got a nice ovation before his first at-bat. Big crowd here at Bright House on another absolutely gorgeous day (77 degrees on the left-center-field scoreboard). ... Kyle Kendrick's line today: 2-2/3 IP, 4 hits, 1 run, 0 walks, 0 strikeouts. He allowed a solo homer to Ray Sadler. ... Back-to-back home runs by Ryan Howard and John Mayberry Jr. in the second inning gave the Phillies an early lead. Mayberry continues to impress. Miguel Cairo also homered in the second. Ronny Paulino added a solo homer in the sixth.