Myers Demoted

According to the Phillies and every beat writer and blogger that covers the team, Brett Myers will report to AAA Lehigh Valley and start tomorrow against Scranton.

This has been a long, hard stretch for Myers and the Phillies. After transitioning to the closer role last year, Myers had to move back to the rotation this spring, where he's had success before. He was named as the Opening Day starter, partly as a reward and partly because of his ability. However, nothing came together. It was bad outing after bad outing. Walk after walk. Home run after home run.

The Phillies just had to stop giving away games. They were not winning his starts, and he was putting the team in a hole early. I'm confident he can work out his problems and get back, but they have to go in a different direction for a bit.

Who's coming up? All indications point to J.A. Happ or Carlos Carrasco. Brian Mazzone is an outside possibility, but he's one of those AAA guys who never really made a splash in the minors, and he'll have a tough time convincing anyone he should be up. Someone high up in the organization said that Carrasco will get the first call if necessary, but he struggled in his last start, and that could change things. I think it'll be Happ.

As a random note, this makes the Phillies the 30th and obviously final team to make a change to their pitching staff this season. Prior to this move, the Phillies had the same 12 pitchers on the team all season long.