Lieber effectively shows his stuff

SARASOTA, Fla. - After pitching into a backdrop of scouts and while enduring another round of questions centered on his uncertain future, Phillies starter Jon Lieber at least retained his sense of humor.

OK, maybe it is a biting, bitter sense of humor, but it is a sense of humor nonetheless.

Asked yesterday what he currently weighed, the perpetually husky righthander deadpanned, "Two-ten."

Huh?

He lost 33 pounds in 3 weeks?

Doing what?

Lifting his 25,000-pound SuperTruck?

"Aw, I'm just bleeping with you," Lieber said.

Actually, Lieber has lost about 2 pounds, down to 241. He hopes to hit 235 by the time camp breaks at the end of the month. By then, his fate likely will be known.

The Phillies have been entertaining trade talks for Lieber for months. He is the sixth pitcher in a five-man rotation, bumped out by the addition of Freddy Garcia and Adam Eaton and the return of Jamie Moyer.

Last year, when he was the staff ace, he, not Garcia, would be pitching in the cozy "B" game against the Blue Jays back in Clearwater.

Instead, Lieber was paraded before a packed scouting section bearing pitching charts and radar guns; a back-of-the-rotation, nearly-37-year-old making a modest $7.5 million and auditioning for 29 teams, embodied in their representatives who hovered in Lieber's peripheral vision.

He bore down and pitched two scoreless innings against Cincinnati, giving up three hits with three strikeouts among 41 pitches. He effectively used all four of his pitches, and his slider was occasionally nasty.

"I'm just watching the catcher's mitt, just getting ready. Pitching. Preparing for Opening Day," Lieber said.

And dieting like crazy.

Just joking.

The Phillies were disappointed when Lieber, carrying about 15 pounds more than even he likes, strained his groin last year and missed 5 weeks, including the team's wretched June.

"The way it works is, you pitch good, they don't care what you weigh," Lieber said.

Lieber went 9-11 with a 4.93 earned run average last season, perhaps the worst of his 12 in the majors.

The killer: a nine-run outing on July 31, after which he acknowledged his focus was shaken because he was involved in trade rumors. He showed none of that shakiness yesterday.

"He can handle it. It's not hard," manager Charlie Manuel said.

With Lieber guaranteed $7.5 million this season, Manuel cannot see how any player would be unsettled.

"It's not hard at all. I think I'd digest it," Manuel said.

"And I think I'd pitch my [butt] off."

That's pretty much what Lieber did at the end of last season. He finished 5-3 with a 3.38 ERA during the Phils' playoff push over the last 2 months of the season.

"That's amazing for a guy who's out of shape," Lieber said.

Ah, there it is again.

"I'm tired of it," Lieber said.

"It gets to the point you have to answer the same bleeping questions whenever things go bad."

The only solutions, then, would be to keep off the weight or make sure things never go bad.

Then again, perhaps the two go hand-in-hand.

All kidding aside. *