YONG KIM / Staff Photographer
Phillies starter Brett Myers kicks as he delivers a pitch against the Marlins. The righthander, prone to giving up the long ball, allowed two more bombs in 52/3 innings. He yielded five runs.
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Homers and hip plague Brett Myers
Brett Myers has had a difficult season. He has been inconsistent. His ERA is a plump 4.66. He has had trouble keeping the baseball in the ballpark.
Could this be the reason why?
After taking the loss in a 6-2 setback against the Florida Marlins last night, the Phillies pitcher admitted that his right hip - the one he uses to get much of his push off the rubber - had been bothering him all season.
Myers, who allowed two home runs in the game, raising his season total to 17, the most in the majors, said he expects to have an MRI examination today.
"I've felt it for a while, even the past couple of years at times," he said. "This was worse than it's ever been. In my last start [Friday at New York] I felt it a little bit but not too bad.
"Tonight it was pretty bad, especially out of the stretch. It bothered me every second or third pitch."
Myers left the game in the sixth inning. The official reason: inflammation in the hip. He said X-rays taken after he departed showed "some jaggedness" and "tightness" in the joint, but added: "They don't think it's serious, just normal wear and tear."
Myers said he might need a cortisone shot to alleviate the discomfort, which he said was "terrible" at times last night. He described a shooting pain from his hip to his knee.
"I'm a little nervous," he said. "I've never really been hurt bad before."
Manager Charlie Manuel said Myers had mentioned some occasional discomfort in his hip, "but he never made a big deal of it." Manuel said it was too early to know if the righthander would make his next start.
Myers (4-3) has allowed at least one home run in eight of 10 starts.
Many of the homers that Myers has allowed have come on pitches that have been poorly located, pitches that have caught too much of the plate. Myers, 28, doesn't have the power fastball he had in previous seasons. That makes it imperative that he hit his spots.
The pitcher was asked if his hip problem had hurt his ability to locate his pitches.
"I think it did tonight," he said.
He said the hip especially bothered him when he worked out of the stretch, with a man on base. That was the situation Myers found himself in when Cody Ross hit a two-run homer to give the Marlins a 5-1 lead in the sixth. Ross hit a 3-1 slider that spent too much time over the plate. Myers was removed after walking the next batter, John Baker.
The Marlins scored three times in the sixth. Myers allowed consecutive no-out doubles to Chris Coghlan and Dan Uggla to start the inning. Uggla's RBI double came on an 0-2 fastball that caught too much plate.
Two innings earlier, Uggla homered off Myers. The righthander fell behind Uggla, 2-0, and was forced to throw a strike. It was a juicy one - a 90-m.p.h. fastball over the inner half of the plate. Uggla didn't miss it.
The Marlins ended up taking two of three in the series when Matt Lindstrom got Jimmy Rollins (the potential tying run) to line out to center with the bases loaded to end the game. The loss put the Phils' home record at 9-14 and dropped them out of first place in the National League East. They are now a half-game behind the New York Mets.
Florida righthander Burke Badenhop made his first start of the season after 11 relief appearances. He held the Phils to one run - a Carlos Ruiz homer - over five innings.
"We had trouble timing him," Manuel said of Badenhop. "And we chased some bad balls."
The Phils had just one hit in eight chances with a runner in scoring position and left eight men on base, including five in the last two innings, when they got a pinch-hit homer from Matt Stairs in the eighth but no other runs.
Contact staff writer Jim Salisbury at 215-854-4983 or jsalisbury@phillynews.com.
