I wrote a blog post about Brett Myers, looking at his numbers and trying to get at what's different. My main conclusions were the following:

1) Myers’ fastball is about 1.5 MPH slower this year than last time he was a starter
2) Myers’ home ERA is less than half of his road ERA—inconsistent with his career
3) Myers’ 1st inning ERA is 11.60: about 2.5 times as high as his career 1st inning ERA
4) After the 1st inning, his ERA is only 5.10, and his peripherals indicate that should be lower.
5) His 1st inning problems seem to be mostly due to an explosively high HR rate and an abnormally low K rate

It should be noted that Myers just had an MRI and it came back fine, adding to the case that the problem is somewhat mental. He also has been quoted since his demotion as saying that he is upset about not being in the bullpen, and that he didn't necessarily prepare for games in terms of studying opposing hitters since being moved to the pen last year.

Personally, my observation has been that his lower average fastball velocity is due to abnormal variance in speed-- he does seem to hit 91-92 MPH sometimes, but then he'll throw another pitch at 86-87 MPH. I would guess he's inconsistent in his delivery.

The blog post is here: http://www.thegoodphight.com/2008/6/29/561180/the-decline-of-brett-myers

I knew they should have moved Freddy Garcia to the bullpen before last season. Then when he revealed that he was injured they would have had only five starters, and could have had a bullpen made up of relievers.

(will read the article later...)

What was the mean Kyle Kendrick prank?

The Kyle Kendrick prank was during Spring Training this year. The manager brought Kendrick into the office and told him that he was traded to Japan. I thought that Kendrick deserved it for being ignorant of the rules of the CBA.

How do you pronounce "Padraic"? Is it the same name as "Padraig"? Or am I missing something?

Really well-written and informative piece. Nice work.

Golfing Great,

Yeah, pretty much. You can go the Irish route and pronounce it "Pa-rag" like Padraig Harrington, or the American route where it sounds like Patrick.

Padraic, nicely done. As closely as I watched the team last year, I didn't realize how hard they rode Myers out of the pen. He does look like a guy who should be able to do a Mike Marshall out of the bullpen, but he's such a meathead his arm could hurt for two weeks before he realized it.

I stumbled across this. I guess the answer to the title question is "NO". :)

Darn, he looked good Sunday night. I was too high up behind home to really get a good look.
He was a little lucky to end up giving up only 2 hits but he had the Brewers popping up or hitting moderate grounders most of the night.