Though the Mets hope to stop a 2-game skid (has the Jerry Manuel Death Watch commenced?) against the Reds today (Volquez v. Pelfrey, 1:15pm EST), they might be forgiven for looking ahead to this week’s trio of games at Shea against the division leading Phillies. Following a highly celebrated stint with Lehigh Valley of the International League, Philadelphia’s Brett Myers tells the Inquirer’s Jim Salisbury, “”I can’t think of a better team for me to come back against.”
“I don’t like ’em,” he said. “We’re not supposed to like them. Nothing against the guys on the team – they’re our rivals. We like beating them; they like beating us.”
Myers believes that the trip to the minors helped his fastball command and confidence. The righthander’s velocity has ebbed since he moved from closer to the rotation, and that has made locating his pitches more important.
“I feel way more confident than I did,” he said. “I feel like I was aggressive again. I had to get some swagger back, and I feel I accomplished that.
“I threw my fastball a lot, enough where I’m comfortable with it and not worried about it getting hit.”
Myers said it was good to get away for a while because his struggles had begun to bring him down.
“I wasn’t having fun,” he said. “Going down made working hard a little easier. I saw some old faces who were able to tell me what I used to be. They open your eyes. You say, ‘What have I become?’ “
And what had Myers become?
“You can’t print it,” he said.
Myers found time to watch the all-star festivities and liked Chase Utley’s profane message to the New York fans who booed him before the Home Run Derby.
“That was fun,” he said. “I thoroughly enjoyed it. If it had been me, I’d have been run out of town already.”
With all due respect to Utley’s attempts at out-booring Myers, the 2nd baseman has a long way to go.
Myers is somebody who should just 86 his yapping to the press other than to offer perfunctory statements. As much of an embarrassment as he is and how he has hurt the Phils this season, he isnt even the major concern at this point.
The Charlie Manuel era Phillies have been a resilient team that have been able to pick themselves off the mats after bad stretches and I am a lot more patient with them than in years past, but picking up where they left off before the break and dropping the series in Florida has worked my last nerve. For the past 6 weeks their vaunted offense has been reduced to 3 contributing batters (Utley, Howard, Burrell) while the rest of the lineup and reserves have been a constant wearying parade of feebly swatted groundouts , popouts, K’s and brutally bad ABs. Phans can reasonably hope that Jimmy Rollins , Jayson Werth and Shane Victorino eventually step their games up, but it is apparent that Carlos Ruiz, Geoff Jenkins and So Taguchi have delivered nothing and will not bring anything this season and Pedro Feliz is what he is ( a terrible batsman who does manage to poke a few timely hits every now and again). The Phillies have to make some moves and do something with this black hole in the lineup as from the 6th batter through to the 2nd batter this team is comatose and its a scary thought to consider that if not for the surprisingly stellar BP, the Phillies would be a .500 team at best. As is stands going into the Mets series, I will be happy if the Phillies get out of there with 1 win.