I screamed at the TV, ripped my hair out, and ground my teeth down to nubs as we kept sending Eaton and Myers out there every 5th day.  I mean we stuck with Eaton until the end of July for crying out loud.

One thing I found out through it all was that I could never handle being a manager.  I would not be able to a) keep sending a guy like Eaton out there every 5th day, b) stick with a head case like Myers in order to get the best out of him, or c) deal with upper management telling me I have no choice but to do both A and B.

I hate to sound cliche, but every game really does matter.  Every game you win in April and May is one less you need to win in August and September.  To that end, it absolutely killed me to see us “waste” all those starts with those two in particular.

I get wanting to stick with Myers, up to a point.  I also give the Phils credit for approaching Myers about going to the minors and I give Myers credit for going and straightening himself out.  The thing is that it became a necessity for Myers to pitch as well as he did down the stretch specifically because of how poorly he pitched earlier in the season.  So it comes out as a wash in my book.  My only hope is that he truly has gotten his head on straight, turned himself around, and will give us in 2009 what he did down the stretch in 2008.

Eaton is another case entirely.  He was a mistake from day one.  It was glaringly apparent in 2007.  In light of that, he should have been yanked much, much sooner than he was in 2008, IMO.  Eaton puts me in mind of a business term, the name of which eludes me at the moment.  Here is the gist:

You buy new software to run your business.  It turns out that it was the wrong decision.  The software is not getting the job done and is costing you money through delayed or unfilled orders, inventory problems, etc…  You can decide to stick with this software, even though you know it is hurting your business, because you just spent so much money on it, or you can purchase new software that does what you need it to do.  Sticking with the bad software is the wrong thing to do.  Yes, it’s difficult to swallow it and spend more for the right software, but it is the correct business decision.  The money you spent on the bad software is gone.  You will never get it back.  You only hurt your business further by keeping it.  Well, in my mind Eaton is the bad software.  It’s about time the Phils finally woke up, swallowed hard, ate his contract, and did what was right to help the ballclub.

I really hope we don’t need to deal with anything like that again this year.

Bski, I also agree with you that Hamels, more than anyone on our team, understands the importance of year round conditioning. I’ve been reading reports he’s been down in camp for a few weeks already and has been working hard with the trainers. Hopefully this pays off. IT would be amazing to see him follow up last years historic october with a Cy Young….