He walked a couple of batters here. He surrendered a few broken-bat hits there. He made some good pitches the Arizona Diamondbacks hit. He made some bad pitches they crushed.

It added up to another frustrating start for Myers, who allowed seven runs and nine hits in five innings of an 8-3 loss as the Phillies split the four-game series.

"I can't put together back-to-back good starts," Myers said. "I don't know what the problem is. It's frustrating."

Myers could have been nearly perfect and it might not have mattered. Diamondbacks righthander Brandon Webb, now 8-0, owned the Phillies. He pitched a complete game, allowing just one run and three hits through eight innings.

But Myers did not provide his teammates with the opportunity to steal one from Webb, either.

They staked Myers to a 1-0 lead, but he allowed a two-run home run by Chris Young in the bottom of the first inning to make it 2-1. He allowed four more runs in the fourth (after he walked the first two hitters he faced) and another run in the fifth to make it 7-1.

"He's got to pitch better than that," manager Charlie Manuel said. "He's got to get consistent. He plays a part in us winning. He was our opening-day starter, and he has to pitch and win for us. He had a rough day."

Myers is 2-3 with a 5.33 ERA, which is just a tick better than Adam Eaton's 5.63.

The righthander has pitched more than five innings just four times in his first eight starts.

Myers was struggling with his velocity earlier this season, but seemed to rediscover his fastball last weekend in a loss to San Francisco at Citizens Bank Park. Myers' fastball hit 92 m.p.h. at times yesterday, so that did not appear to be the issue.

"Every time I get my rear end kicked, it's frustrating," Myers said. "I've just got to keep battling. It's definitely not fun going out there feeling real good and then getting beat up like that. I wouldn't change anything because I felt I had good stuff today. I just got hit around."

Chris Coste caught Myers yesterday and last weekend against the Giants. He said Myers had the same stuff.

"I hope he doesn't try to reinvent something because the stuff he had today easily could have been one run or two runs," Coste said. "There was such a fine line between success and failure today."

Myers simply fell on the wrong side of that line too often.

Todd Zolecki's Phillies blog: http://go.philly.com

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