Brett Myers

BRETT MYERS assaults his wife and gets a slap on the wrist suspension and an indifferent response from Phillies fans. Terrell Owens, who doesn't drink, smoke, do drugs or slap women around, commits the sin of saying Brett Favre could help the Eagles and gets run out of town like some pigskin pariah. The message from Philadelphia sports management is clear. You can slap your wife around in a parking lot just as long as you don't do a little celebration dance afterward or sign autographs for witnesses with a Sharpie.

Brett Myers didn't register any strikeouts in four innings of work against Toronto yesterday, and that was OK with manager Charlie Manuel. "He's beginning to realize he doesn't have to strike out everyone," Manuel said. "Getting them out is the name of the game. " Myers allowed five hits, two walks and two runs in the Phillies' 10-8 win over the Blue Jays. Most encouraging was that 10 of his 12 outs came via ground balls. "The whole key for me is keeping the ball down," he said.

By allowing their star pitcher to play in a game one day after he was charged with assaulting his wife, the Phillies showed twisted priorities. Here is the team's bottom-line rationale: Brett Myers is the Phils' best pitcher. If the Phillies allowed Myers to pitch as scheduled on Saturday against the Boston Red Sox, they had a better chance of winning - on national TV. And the point of paying Myers $3.3 million this year is to win games. "He's been our best pitcher and I think it's in the best interests of the club that he does pitch," said Phillies General Manager Pat Gillick.

Chris Coste knew when he started playing catch with Brett Myers last night before the game that Myers was going to have close to his A-1 fastball. "I told [pitching coach] Rich Dubee after about six or seven throws, 'He's got a little attitude on the ball tonight,'" Coste recalled. Myers had the stuff. He pitched seven solid innings and struck out a season-high 10 against the San Francisco Giants. Unfortunately, the Phillies managed just three hits - none after the fifth inning - and lost, 3-2, on a Bengie Molina RBI single in the 10th, in front of a chilled sellout crowd of 43,804 at Citizens Bank Park.

Phillies players didn't need to read the list of probable starters in the newspaper to know they'd be facing New York Mets ace Pedro Martinez tonight. "We knew who their starters would be days ago," Mike Lieberthal said. "Pedro always stands out. " Martinez, who ranks third in the National League with 182 strikeouts and is holding opposing hitters to a .192 batting average (second lowest in the NL), will oppose Brett Myers. Myers (11-6, 3.55) has turned in ace-like work at times this season, but he's still prone to inconsistency, as shown in his 5.01 ERA in five August starts.

Did the Phillies sign Jenny Craig to a free-agent contract this winter, or what? Ryan Howard dropped 20 pounds. Brett Myers has him beat. He lost 30. "Just working out a lot," Myers said yesterday as he checked into training camp. The 28-year-old pitcher said he weighs about 222 pounds. Myers will be eligible for free agency at season's end, but that, he said, was not his motivation for getting in better shape. "Winning the World Series was great, but personally I had a bad taste in my mouth this winter because of how badly I pitched in the first half of the season," the righthander said.

The sellout crowd at Citizens Bank Park rose in anticipation of a third strike to end the eighth inning and to salute Brett Myers for taking a positive step toward regaining a strong role as a member of the Phillies' rotation. Alas, it then went all wrong. Myers saw his solid outing blow up in his face when Chone Figgins stroked a single on a 2-2 pitch, and Erick Aybar followed with his second home run of the season, a blow that deflated the crowd and lifted the Angels to a 6-2 victory over the Phillies.

One pitcher's incredible spring-training run finally came to an end yesterday. Another's did not. Brett Myers prepared to make the drive to the Phillies' minor-league camp at the Carpenter Complex yesterday. Carlos Silva, who has had a far less publicized but equally impressive spring, boarded the team bus to Ed Smith Stadium to play the Cincinnati Reds. By the end of the afternoon, Silva was pumping his right fist, celebrating his fourth save of the Grapefruit League season as the Phillies beat the Reds, 4-3. Silva, like Myers, has never pitched above double A. He seemed to have almost no chance of making the big-league team when he arrived in Clearwater five weeks ago. Of course, he was then still a starting pitcher ticketed for the rotation at triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.

Everything just fit together so well yesterday. Randy Wolf pitched effectively in Game 1 of a doubleheader against Montreal at Veterans Stadium, even though he knew before he ever stepped onto the mound that he didn't have his best stuff. Ricky Ledee and Marlon Byrd came up with big hits. Tomas Perez started a key at-bat in Game 2 on the left side of the plate, then switched to the right side with a 2-0 count to deliver the shot to the Expos' solar plexus. Jose Mesa picked up two saves with little trouble.

The bullpen held. The Phillies won. Maybe Phillies starting pitcher Brett Myers knew that would happen. Maybe that's why he smiled and laughed as Charlie Manuel took the ball from his hands with two outs in the bottom of the sixth inning last night in a 4-1 victory over the Florida Marlins at Dolphins Stadium. Myers left with two on and a two-run lead. He had allowed just three hits, walked one and struck out eight. But he also had thrown 104 pitches. "We were just having a good time," Myers said of his interaction with Manuel on the mound.

Reserve catcher Brian Schneider had been showing signs of increased offensive production even before his first home run in more than a year during Tuesday's 4-3 Phillies win in 10 innings over the Houston Astros at Citizens Bank Park. Schneider, now hitting .303, began the season 0 for 8, but he was 8 for his last 21 at-bats entering the game and then went 2 for 4 with a two-run home run in the win. That was his first home run in 145 at-bats since April 21, 2011, against the San Diego Padres.

They look like they could be brothers, a couple of 6-foot-4 towheads with high cheekbones and, on this afternoon, big country smiles. Hunter Pence and Jake Diekman went through a whirlwind of emotions on Tuesday afternoon. Pence drew boos for a costly error, his second defensive misadventure of this homestand, then cranked the game-winning home run in the 10th inning. The homer - which for added delight came at the expense of old pal Brett Myers - earned a victory for Diekman in the young lefthander's major-league debut.

ED WADE certainly has heard the jokes. Brad Lidge. Roy Oswalt. Hunter Pence. At times, it seemed as if he was helping his former team more than his current one while the general manager of the Astros. "I'm prepared for the remarks that I only traded with the Phillies so Ruben would give me a job if I got fired," Wade lightheartedly told the Houston Chronicle yesterday. Well, Wade was fired in November with 2 years left on his contract - caught up in the ownership change in Houston - and now is back with the Phillies as a special consultant to the baseball operations department.

IT IS OCT. 1, the final Saturday of Major League Baseball's regular season. The Phillies and Astros both clinched wild-card spots earlier in the week and are now destined for a one-game playoff in 4 days. But with two games remaining, the site of that playoff game depends on what happens today and tomorrow. The Astros' rotation calls for aces Roger Clemens and Roy Oswalt to close out the regular season, while the Phillies have their two most productive starters ready to go. Houston leads by one game in the standings, which means today and tomorrow will decide which team hosts the playoff.

It was a head-spinning evening, with nonstop "I-don't-believe-what-I-just-saw" moments. At a time when Bud Selig is pushing hard for postseason expansion, which he eventually will get, the final day of the 2011 regular season served as a let-it-be message to the baseball commissioner. It ain't broke, Bud, so don't try to fix it. With the Selig plan in place, none of what happened Wednesday night would have taken place, because St. Louis, Atlanta, Boston, and Tampa Bay would have been guaranteed one-game playoff spots before they took the field.

HOUSTON - Nights like these have been close to nonexistent for the Phillies this season: Nights when the clubhouse door stays closed a little longer; nights when the silence between the players hangs a little thicker; nights when Charlie Manuel addresses the media in a way that makes the media feel like he is addressing his team. It isn't just that they lost to the lowly Astros for the second straight night. The Phillies, even with their best-in-the-majors record and World Series aspirations, have lost too many games to remember this season.

HOUSTON - The only thing separating the Phillies and Astros entering Monday was 461/2 games in the standings. That gap only begins to describe the differences between these two teams. Naturally, the pitching matchup in the series opener was perfect baseball poetry. Here was Roy Oswalt, the ace for so many years in this city, starting for the Phillies as their fourth best pitcher in his return. Opposing him was Brett Myers, the man who once showered fans with beer to celebrate the beginning of a majestic era of baseball in Philadelphia.

HOUSTON - In the end, it was more of a housecoming than a homecoming for Roy Oswalt and Hunter Pence. Gone were the teammates they used to share. Gone were the fans they used to play in front of. Gone was just about any sign of life that once inhabited Minute Maid Park. The only familiar thing for the two former Astros was the end result: a loss, this time as members of the Phillies, who fell, 5-1, in the first of a three-game series. Oswalt and Pence each received a healthy ovation from the fans who bothered to show up to watch a Houston team that entered the night with the worst record in the majors.

DENVER - Well before the start of yesterday's game, Brad Lidge learned that the Phillies would be taking the field without their closer as Ryan Madson headed to Los Angeles to be with his wife for the birth of their fourth child. Lidge did not know whether that meant he would be the top option in a save situation. He had not had a save since last season, when he was still 5 months away from the shoulder and elbow trouble that would cost him the first half of 2011. But manager Charlie Manuel had no doubt.