You can't dismiss this anymore as Myers being off to a slow start. He made his ninth start of the season last night, and he was as bad as he has been all season.

These are the types of concerns Phillies fans anticipated with Adam Eaton, but Eaton is the fifth starter.

Myers and Cole Hamels are supposed to be the meat of the starting rotation.

Myers is not supposed to be a pitcher who is 2-4 with an ERA racing toward the stratosphere.

Right now, Myers is more of a detriment to what the Phillies are trying to achieve. If they had another option, they would have to consider yanking him out of the rotation. That's how badly things are going for Myers. He was brutal in last night's 8-6 loss to the Atlanta Braves.

Within his first six pitches, Myers gave up home runs to Yunel Escobar and Chipper Jones and dropped the Phillies into a 2-0 deficit.

By the time skipper Charlie Manuel mercifully pulled the plug on Myers after 4 1/3 innings, he had let in six runs with two more potential ones on base.

Myers' final line included nine hits, eight runs (six earned) and three home runs. He unleashed that carnage in 75 pitches.

In his last two starts, Myers has surrendered 15 runs (12 earned) and 18 hits in 9 1/3 innings.

"I don't know exactly what we can do," Manuel said. "We can keep working with him, sending him out there and seeing where it goes."

Again, we are not talking about a back-of-the-rotation starter.

Frankly, if Myers were pitching like this as a fourth or fifth starter, he'd probably be headed to the bullpen or fitted for a Lehigh Valley IronPigs uniform.

A team can't survive with a pitcher at the top of its rotation performing like this.

It was frightening how bad Myers was against the Braves. He wasn't pitching. He was throwing batting practice. The quality of the tracers lighting up the South Philadelphia sky was impressive.

Something clearly is not right with Myers.

The question is whether the problem is in his arm or in his head.

It's one thing for a pitcher to give up runs, but something else to yield them in a manner in which Myers did.

Escobar sent Myers' second pitch over the wall in leftfield. Jones hit a first-pitch fastball over the wall in center.

In the second inning, Myers gave up a home run on his first pitch to Kelly Johnson, and in the third it was a run-scoring double to Brian McCann on a first pitch. Myers' last pitch was a flat, first-pitch fastball to McCann that resulted in a run-scoring single.

Each time Myers tried to get ahead in the count, he ended up falling further behind on the scoreboard.

"It seemed like they were hitting everything he threw up there - hitting him hard," Manuel said. "It was like [the Braves] knew what he was going to throw. They were on everything he threw.

"[Myers] said he thought some of the ones they hit were good pitches. He's having problems with his location."

It wasn't even that Myers needed to be great.

The Phillies' offense can overcome an early deficit if the pitcher can hold his composure and keep things manageable.

But asking the bats to climb out of an 8-0 hole is asking too much. Heck, the offense still almost bailed out Myers.

The Phillies are 3-6 in Myers' starts. He's given up at least four runs in six of them. That might be acceptable from a fifth, fourth or maybe even a third starter, but you can't have that from your co-ace - not if you truly expect to be playing in October.

Everybody has a theory about what's wrong with Myers.

There has been talk about a loss in velocity, a lack of conditioning, a bit of pouting because he's no longer a closer.

I don't know.

I just know that if somebody doesn't solve the problem real soon, the Phillies are going to have to start figuring out what they are going to do with Myers, and life without him in the rotation can't be taken off the table as an option.

What's going on now can't be allowed to continue much longer. *

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