Ford: Myers beats Sabathia at the plate, on the mound

Before each of the first two pitches he saw from CC Sabathia last night, Brett Myers dug himself into the box, jammed his helmet firmly on his head, and went through a dozen nervous gyrations that didn't seem to help once the pitches arrived. He was well behind the first one, a fastball, and well ahead of the second, a change-up.

He was so overmatched the crowd could only chuckle. The Phillies already had tied the game in the inning, the bottom of the second, getting back the run Myers allowed in the first and, even though there was still a runner at second base with two outs, that would have to be enough for the moment.

But then an odd thing happened.

Sabathia missed with a pitch and then Myers barely touched the end of his bat to a slider, pushing a soft foul toward the Phillies' first base dugout. The crowd cheered him for getting a bat on the ball, nothing more. But when Sabathia put the next pitch into the dirt and Myers dug his spikes and jammed his helmet again, the cheer that followed was a real one, a cheer meant to rattle Sabathia and, hey, if Myers was going to tangle with the supposedly untouchable Milwaukee starter, he would have some friends with him.

Far more than for what he did on the mound last night - and it was a very good performance in the Phils' 5-2 playoff win over Milwaukee - Brett Myers entered team lore for this second-inning at-bat. Sabathia joined it, too, nestling in alongside Burt Hooton in the pantheon of opposing pitchers who came undone in a pressure moment.

Myers fouled off another pitch (bigger cheer), took another ball in the dirt (huge cheer), fouled off yet another pitch (enormous cheer), and then took a low ball four (deafening cheer) for a walk. Completely unnerved, Sabathia walked Jimmy Rollins on four pitches to load the bases and then hung a two-strike slider to Shane Victorino that landed in the left-field stands along with whatever hope the Brewers still had of winning this series.

"I know I'm a terrible hitter. . . . I really can't explain it," Myers said of his at-bat. "Baseball's weird like that, to where you have a guy who pretty much can't hit a lick [can] go up there and battle a guy that's as good as CC."