Talk to us about game two in the 2008 NLDS where you contributed both on the mound and at the plate with the crowd behind you.
Brett Myers: Yeah, a lot of people forget that I pitched that game [laughs]. It got overshadowed by the hitting. It’s different adrenaline going through your body with 40,000 plus fans on their feet in the playoffs. The energy is different. I was so amped up which caused me to struggle a bit in the first inning on the mound.
When I came up to bat, I realized there was no pressure to get a hit with a future hall of fame pitcher in C.C. Sabathia on the mound. It sounds crazy, but I felt like he was throwing beach balls. The swings might not have represented it, but I felt like that. I honestly don’t know why. I just bore down.
By my third at-bat, Rollins and Shane Victorino were telling me how to watch for the slider. I had no idea what they were talking about but he gave me a first-pitch fastball, and I shot it to the opposite field for a hit. It was fun to contribute to Phillies’ history in that way.
That has to be one of my favorite memories of the 2008 season.
Brett Myers: It wasn’t the three hits and three RBIs in the next game in the NLCS? [laughs] That was another freakish thing. Most managers never let pitchers swing at the first pitch but in the playoffs, Charlie Manuel let us loose. I went 4-5 in the playoffs and every hit I got was on the first pitch. I said to Charlie if he would’ve let me do this sooner, we would’ve won a lot more ball games or at least I would have. Sometimes I had to help myself out.