THINKS THE EAGLES STOLE ONE
Hours before the 11:59pm signing deadline for this year's draft picks, a report from Louisiana's 2theadvocate.com, among other reports from Lousiana, says that the Phillies have agreed to a deal with highly-regarded righthanded pitcher Brody Colvin. Colvin slipped to the seventh round because of a commitment to play at LSU. Colvin participated in a workout at Citizens Bank Park this week. A Phillies official could not confirm this for the Inquirer a few minutes ago.
UPDATE 10:06p.m.: The Phillies have confirmed the Colvin signing to the Inquirer.
ATLANTA-- Brett Myers says that he was not involved in an altercation that occurred while he was at a Jacksonville, Fla. bar early Saturday morning, and multiple eyewitnesses confirmed his account.
Witnesses who were in Shannon’s Irish Pub, 111 Bartram Oaks Walk in Jacksonville at the time of the incident, said Myers and several friends were at the bar and listening to a band called Chuch Nash at about 12:45 a.m. Saturday. One witness saw an elderly man, passing through a dance floor in front of the stage, fall into a musician.
An altercation ensued that lasted for “a pretty good while,” the witness said, and ended when officers from the St. John’s County Sheriff’s office intervened. Both Myers and other witnesses said that one of Myers’ friends was involved in the incident, but Myers was not.
“There was no trouble with Myers directly,” one witness said.
Myers said that he was at a booth in a different part of the bar when incident occurred.
“My wife saw that there was something going on, and that we should leave,” Myers said. “That is the whole truth.”
The Inquirer made numerous attempts to contact the Sheriff’s office, but could only reach a voicemail message. A source said that no police report was filed.
The Phillies pitcher, who underwent June hip surgery and was scheduled to make his first rehabilitation start yesterday in Clearwater Fla. suffered a bruised left eye the same night, and had to postpone the appearance.
Myers initially told the Phillies Saturday that he injured his eye playing catch with his 4-yeare-old son, then changed his story, informing them that he tripped while trying to exit his wife’s Cadillac Escalade. He told the Inquirer that he drank “two or three beers” while out at dinner. A source at the bar confirmed that claim, and said that Myers did not drink any hard liquor.
“The reason I told the Phillies that story at first was because I felt like an idiot, a klutz,” Myers said, who maintained that the second story about the Escalade was true. “But then I felt bad so I told them the truth.”
Okay, we were just informed by Ruben Amaro via Phillies spokesman Kevin Gregg that Brett Myers has changed his story about how he hurt his eye. Myers initially informed the team that a ball hit him in the face during a game of catch with his four-year-old son.
Just heard that Brett Myers' scheduled first rehab start tonight was cancelled because the pitcher was struck in the eye by a ball while playing catch with his four-year-old son Kolt. That's all we know right now, but we're expecting more infor from Ruben Amaro today.
Not that you were thinking about this on an August night after the Phils swept the Cubbies and Beergate continues to rivet the nation, but I thought it was of interest nonetheless.
I was on the radio before the clubhouse opened and was asked if Moyer would criticize the team for moving him to the bullpen. I said no, Jamie Moyer might be privately grousing, but he is way to savvy and protective of his own image to rip the team in public. I was very, very, wrong.
Here's a more fully fleshed out description of the events as they unfolded:
****
You be the judge: Was HE being professional today?
CHICAGO — Phillies veteran pitcher Jamie Moyer is not happy about his demotion from the starting rotation as the Phillies prepared to play the Cubs tonight at Wrigley Field.
“I’m really not happy with this decision that the Phillies have made,” Moyer said. “I will take what they are asking me to do but I’m not excited about it \[relieving\].”
Moyer was replaced in the rotation by Pedro Martinez, who will pitch in his Phillies’ debut Wednesday night.
“I am a little disheartened,” said Moyer, 46, who is 10-9, with a 5.47 ERA. Moyer said that during free-agent contract negotiations in the offseason that Phillies general manager Ruben Amaro told “me that this type of situation would not happen.”
Amaro responded through a team representative. “When we signed Jamie Moyer it was under the pretense of him being a starter. But right now circumstances have changed,” said Amaro, who said he was not going to get into contract negotiations “because that’s between player and club.”
“I don’t want to be a distraction to my teammates,” Moyer said. “I feel like I’ve been misled.”
The Phillies have announced that Pedro Martinez will start Wednesday. They have also told Jamie Moyer that he will be headed to the bullpen. Though the team has long maintained that Moyer's stuff was not suited for a relief role, Happ's recent dominance left them with little choice but to make this move.
In three rehab starts, Martinez was 1-1 with a 5.11 ERA, and 16 strikeouts in 12.1 innings.
Happ will start tomorrow and Cliff Lee Thursday, a full week after his previous start.
Also, the Phils activated Chad Durbin from the DL and optioned Rodrigo Lopez to Lehigh Valley.
