Oh, my fastball? Nah, I won't really be needing that.

Brett Myers didn't throw very hard on Sunday. I think he'll be fine. When you're throwing mid 80's instead of low to mid 90's and you only give up four runs then I'm not going to start worrying just yet. Another reason I won't worry is because his problem wasn't velocity it had a lot more to do with the fact that he couldn't spot it inside the strike zone. Meh, I'll take a 5-2 road trip.

On an unrelated note the professional league of footballers held their annual draft this weekend and in true all-American fashion I got drunk during the daytime to celebrate the first couple rounds. Don't worry - other people kept detailed notations about who went where and my intoxicated state allowed my friends and I to ignore the people on the TV whose job it was to comment on every single pick in the draft. I'll choose to ignore the fact that the Redskins more or less drafted an entire new receiving core and a slow tight end from USC all within the second round because that makes me positively spittin' mad.

I choose instead to focus my attention on my beloved Eagles. They deemed the first round not worthy of their involvement (bunch of bourgeoisie doucheclowns, those first round types) so they gladly accepted two later picks and a future 1st round pick to stay out of the nonsense. So they started off their drafting with the 16th pick in the 2nd round and they took a filled a need nobody thought they had - defensive tackle.

Now, let's bare in mind that I don't have a problem with building up the line because Lord knows those guys get hurt. However, Trevor Laws of Notre Dame is just a nice pick. The Eagles got good seasons out of Mike Patterson and the Bunk last year and those guys look to form a solid interior for Jim Johnson next year. My question is wasn't there another need they could have addressed with their first pick in the draft? Turns out they did that with their next pick.

With the 18th pick of that same second round the birds took DeSean Jackson of Cal. Jackson is best know for falling down when he gets near opposing players. He'll do this from time to time, not on purpose, but because he weighted in at 169 pounds at the combine which is about as much as my roommate and he's four inches taller than Jackson and sells copiers for Ikon. Despite Jackson's downside of being undeniably small, he can run like the dickens (4.34 40 time) and will make an immediate impact on special teams. Last season and pretty much since Brian Mitchell left the team the Eagles return game has been - well - a colossal failure. Jackson should plug that hole nicely. And when I say nicely I mean he'll do a better job than the last guy the Eagles drafted to return stuff who was also an Olympic skier, Abercrombie model and real estate developer. I like the first two picks I must say - the second a bit more than the first. If Jackson is only a return guy I'm fine with that but if he can work his way into being a deep threat then this becomes an excellent pick. And if it feels like that's a vague generalization about something it's because when it comes to predicting how draft picks will pan out I am doing the same thing everybody else does - I'm fucking guessing.

In the 3rd round the Eagles dipped into the talent pool of the Southland conference to nap Bryan Smith of McNeese State. Smith is a guy who supposedly plays above his height/weight/40 time which are apparently the three most important things teams look at when drafting a player. Mel Kiper Jr's head almost exploded when he talked about this guy's "relentless motor". A relentless motor is his way of saying when the play starts this guy doesn't stop until the play is over. Now, stop me if I'm talking stupid but isn't that something most players, specifically lineman on both sides of the ball, would almost have to do by the time they get to college? Or even high school for that matter? What defensive end simply hears the whistle and just sort of stands around and waits to see if he feels like tackling the ball carrier running by him. Or does he start of with a relentless motor and then he stops in the middle of the play because he was distracted by - I don't know - a bumble bee or something? Is this a problem among professional athletes? "Yesterday, Jason Taylor was cut from the Dolphins due to a lack of motor. "I don't know what happened," said Taylor "my motor has always been relentless but these past few weeks there's just been so much other cool stuff going on I just sort of forget I was playing football sometimes and just stood around and soaked in the moment."" How many words can we come up with to describe a guy that really don't tell us anything? "Boy, I'll tell ya this guy's got a shitton of wackum......What's wackum? It's something you can't measure but goddamn he's got it. Haven't seen wackum like this since Dicky Fukerbritches in aught-six - single-handedly won us the Spanish-American War, he did. Had a few tackles for losses too. And he discovered modern doorknob." He plays hard? Great. Bryan Smith: a defensive end who plays hard and will not be flummoxed by a bumble bee. Fine - let's move on.

In the fourth round the birds grabbed Michael McGlynn and Quintin Demps. McGlynn could step in a guard right now but could possibly be a tackle if he does big thangs and Demps runs really fast but still projects as a reserve because at the end of the day he's just a safety who doesn't like tackling people. Whoops. I like the McGlynn pick because he can fill a bunch of back up roles until Winston Justice learns to read or something.

Four sixth round picks? You bet your ass. One guy has a torn ACL, another guy went to North Dakota State and another went to Wheaton who I'm not even sure has a football program. I'll be rooting for Andrew Studebaker of Wheaton College in Illinois to make the 2008 Eagles.

7th round? Oh nobody special just KING DUNLAP. King comes to Philly reppin' the dirty dirty by way of Auburn and is a big fella ( 6'8, 310). He got arrested last year and doesn't seem to pass block well even a little bit. Tip of the cap to you, King. You have the honor of trying to block the Hurricane of force that took Wheaton College by storm by the name of Andy Studebaker. I don't envy you. Here's a picture of the King (he's the one on the right).

Lidges Ain't Shit But Hoes and Tricks

Remember Geoff Geary? He looked like a mouse, threw a nice little fastball and complimented it with a nice little slider and loved seafood. Remember Michael Bourn? He ran fast, liked to high-five Ryan Howard and played the outfield. Remember Mike Costanzo? Proably not. He hit a bunch of home runs for AA Reading last season, led the league in errors and grew up just outside Philly. Here's my qiestion: do you miss any of these guys? Yeah, neither do I. So far I like the Lidge trade - quite a lot actually.

Look, everybody knows that saves are about as useful in terms of evaluating a pitcher as Dianetics is in evaluating the human experience. However, having a guy who can come in a close the door is a comforting feeling, albeit one that is often over-valued (see contracts of Joe Nathan, Mariano Rivera and Francisco Cordero). Honestly, Lidge has looked every bit as dominant as his secondary numbers suggested he would be. His slider is, well, very filthy and he's comfortably sitting around 95 MPH. I'm fine with the results so far. He hasn't allowed an earned run (2 unearned) and has struck out over a batter per inning. My beef with what's gone on so far is the only question I had with him coming into the season - walks.

So far this season Lidge has walked 6 guys in 11 innings. Those are pretty rough numbers. He's been able to get away with it for the most part. However, the Phils two best relievers (Lidge and L.C Romero) have been walking too many guys. They have been able to get away with this without getting hurt so far, possibly because of their high strikeout rates. However, if you simply look at their results neither pitcher has given up an earned run so far this season in over 22 innings of work. That's the sort of stuff you'd like from the back end of the bullpen. Tom Gordon has been better as of late which has shocked the hell out of me.

With Lidge and Romero holding down the last two innings of the game it makes the Phils a much easier team to watch on a regular basis. I must say, Chad Durbin has had a hand in one too many games for my liking. Lookit - I think it's just crackerjacks that he's found himself a little role on the team - really I do. But, come on, I do not want this guy in the game in high leverage situations. He's never beena good pitcher anove AAA. Since the Phillies play against teams who are generally better than AAA teams I would like to see him and his "gritty craftiness" and ability to "just get batters out" in the 6th inning of a blowout rather than the 7th inning of a ne run game. When I watch a middling guy like him it's hard not to root for his below average fastball with zero movement and straight change-up that doesn't do s whole lot. You think of him as some kid diving on loose balls in basketball practice who has no chance of ever seeing the floor. Durbin is just diving for loose balls. Sadly he won't make much of a big league pitcher in that role.

Jamie Moyer wants to make love in this club (HEEEEEYYYY) in this club

Jamie Moyer is really quite something. Just to be clear - this post isn't going to be the typical "Moyer is so goddamn crafty I could spit" piece. I'm going to focus more on the horror that is watching this guy go through a lineup. Every single time I watch him heel-toe it out to the mound I get nervous. There are only a few pitchers on the Phillies that make me comfortable to watch and he isn't one of them. (That list, by the by, is one name long - Cole Hamels.) Last season I almost couldn't bring myself to watch Jamie Moyer starts until the 4th inning or so. I did this a few times because by the 4th inning or so, you could get a fairly decent idea of whether this would be a face-punchingly frustrating baseball game to watch.

Today. Moyer tossed six plus innings and gave up only a single run. If there was a gun to my head I couldn't tell you how it happened. Journalists and announcers get positively horny when they talk about his veteran leadership, deceptiveness, pitchability, guts and guile. Typically these are all nice adjectives used to describe a pitcher whom - for lack of a better phrase - sucks balls. Oh really? He's a veteran? He uses guts to get hitters out? Well, Jesus, Ed. Why didn't you say so? Give that man a 10 year contract! Seriously, these things are nice in principal but since they are impossible to quantify I'll take the guy who is able to make hitters fail in their attempts to hit the ball over a guy who uses "guile" instead of "ability".

When one takes a look at the Brewers' line-up you've got to admit they can really score some runs and all but one of their best hitters are right-handed. These right-handed sluggers, Rickie Weeks, Cory Hart, Bill Hall and Ryan Braun beat the living snot out of lefties last year. Also, Prince Fielder (the only lefty of the group) hit two home runs last night against Hamels who is left handed just like Moyer. Oops. Anyways, match=ups didn't exactly favor our hero on this particular day.

I suppose when a guy has been alive for 45 years and pitching for most of those years he grows accustomed to it. The wind-up, the raising and lowering of the front leg and letting go of the same ball for the millionth time likely doesn't seem like something that should strike fear in a person watching it happen. However, every time Jamie Moyer throws a pitch I lose a little hair, the remaining hair grows a touch grey and I forget 10 more things I used to know. I age horribly watching him pitch. What in God's name is keeping these professional hitters from pummeling the crap out of this guy? IT'S A CHANGE-UP, PEOPLE!! HE DIDN'T REINVENT THE WHEEL! HE JUST MADE IT ROLL A LOT SLOWER!! I imagine this is what hitting coaches scream and their hitters after they are early on a change-up and roll over it for a weak ground ball out.

Ever watch a guy shoot an apple off of another guy's head? Neither have I, but that's something akin to the high-wire act that is Jamie Moyer trying to get big league hitters out. If the guy misses by just a little, tiny bit that's it - the guy with the apple on his head is dead. He's just been shot in the face with an arrow by a guy he used to think was his friend and now is just the person who will forever be known as the guy that shot somebody in the face with an arrow. And where does one even get a bow and arrow nowadays? And what the hell ever happened to CHiPS? OK, stop now. While the stakes aren't as high as they would be were the possibility of getting shot in the face with an arrow involved, the stakes for Moyer's pitching are high enough to make my stomach try to escape through my face.

The absolute bottom of the pit of despair that is watching this guy pitch comes when he falls behind in the count. When this happens a few things turn against him: 1) he, more than most pitchers, can't afford to walk people because due to his inability to miss bats he's going to give up hits 2) he has to throw a fastball which is relatively misleading when it's referred to as such and worst of all 3) the hitters know all of this. What does this do? Well, to keep with the absurd metaphor previously used, the wire gets higher and thinner and the apple shrinks to the size of a Lima bean and the guy's head becomes the size of a Volkswagen. Shit. Bad news for everyone involved.

The fortuitous situation this puts the batter in sometimes backfires simply because they react like a little kid. By that I mean they swing really hard, miss and fall down. I doubt that messes with their confidence much because, ya know, they're professional baseball players but that's about the only hope when Moyer's third change-up in a row sails outside to Prince Fielder.

Whatever, it's over, I won't have to watch another Moyer start until next week. That's years form now. Let's see who's starting tomorrow.......oh Jesus Christ.