LOS ANGELES—Before I mention anything else, I have to give a big thank you to Mr. Tug Haines for the Google Wave invite. I don’t know what it is or what it does, but as a Google geek, I know I wanted it and thankfully Tug was kind of enough to send me the invite.
So yes, that was very nice of him.
On another note, Tug along with Mike Meech do a bang up job putting together the web site, The Fightins. Along with Zolecki over there at MLB.com, and Gonz at that newspaper, there aren’t too many mainstream media types that give the proper credit to so-called blog sites. When done well like The Fightins, The 700 Level, Balls, Sticks & Stuff, and many others with a Philly bent, the sites are a blast to read. And aren’t sports supposed to be fun?
Again, thanks to Mr. Tug and here’s hoping those guys keep up the good work because it’s a fun read. Check them out.
As far as the news here goes, Brett Myers is here but was not seen on the field during BP. Then again, I wasn’t looking for him. Charlie said when he broke the news to him that he would not be on the NLCS roster, Myers shrugged and then got up and walked out of the room.
People who have talked to him says he’s “ticked.”
I’m not sure what he has to be ticked about since he’s not very good right now. I’ve trotted this out plenty of times in the past so I’ll do it again here—scouts say his stuff is garbage. He has no pitches and lousy mechanics.
“I look at Brett, and it's almost like spring training for him. He had a very serious injury, came back, and maybe it was too early, I don't know,” Charlie said. “But then he hurt his shoulder, and his shoulder was like a second degree injury. And then I've noticed him, and the fact that he's not sharp, but also what we kind of the things that we wanted to do, it's another way of him going down in the bullpen and working and everything and doing some -- working on his pitching and throwing and stuff and see where he's at.”
Ruben Amaro chalked the decision up to simple baseball business and that Myers didn’t get a chance to throw too much upon returning from hip surgery.
“We think we’re a better team with 11 pitchers,” Amaro said. “We’re trying to win baseball games with the best 25 guys we have.”
Obviously that best 25 did not include Myers.
Meanwhile, Pedro is all set to go in Game 2. It will be interesting to see how long he can go and what kind of stuff he has since he has thrown just seven innings in real games since that 130-pitch game against the Mets in mid-September.
“There’s a risk, of course. But I’d rather take a risk on a guy like Pedro who has experience,” Amaro said.
Yeah, what the hell… it’s Pedro. The worst thing that can come out of it is good times.