Jamie Moyer may be 100% right.

The lefthander may have been “promised” to start by Ruben Amaro Jr. during off season contract negotiations.

He is one of a number of Phillies who has not performed up to snuff in 2009, yet he is falling on his sword en route to a bullpen hell.

He’s paid his dues and then some, and was an integral part of last year’s World Series run.

Hell, Ruben Amaro Jr. in retrospect probably didn’t even need Pedro since he never shipped J.A. Happ to Toronto as part of a deal for Roy Halladay. Get a couple of drinks in Ruben and he may tell you that pocketing the Pedro money and using it to sign some of the June draft picks may have been a better move, but at the time the Phils needed more options in the rotation.

All of the above and more give Jamie Moyer reasons to be annoyed, unhappy and more about his demotion to the bullpen.

But that does not excuse Moyer proactively summoning the local media to publicly air his discontent at a time when the Phillies need distractions like they need another blown save by Brad Lidge.

The Phils just got swept in three games by the rival Florida Marlins, and Jamie Moyer did little to lobby for his continued place in the rotation. His ERA is second worst in the National League and his team leading 10 wins are hardly reason to keep him in the rotation. The way the majority of the season has gone for the starters, having the most wins is tantamount to being the tallest midget in the circus.

According to Amaro Jr. yesterday, Moyer handled his demotion professionally. He would have done well to continue that level of professionalism today.

Moyer is human, and no one is going to be happy with being demoted from something they’ve been doing for a long time. I don’t think anyone expects Moyer to be thrilled about any of it. But Moyer’s actions today were that of an individual who did not have the team’s best interests at heart:

Whether I like it or not, this is the situation I’m in. I will deal with it. I will deal with it in a respectful way. I’ll be respectful to my teammates. Like I said at the beginning, I do not want to be a distraction and I refuse to be a distraction.

If Jamie had truly wished to “refuse to be a distraction”, he wouldn’t have sought out a venue to air his unhappiness. He would have been eventually approached by the media about his demotion, said all of the cliched things that baseball players say to avoid controversy, and could have moved on.

Moyer’s comment that he was assured this would not happen sounds incredibly naive coming from someone who has been in the game for more than 20 years. Did Moyer expect to stay in the rotation no matter what his performance was? Did he expect to be a postseason starter? I don’t doubt that Ruben Amaro Jr. told Moyer that he would be a starter, especially considering the contract they gave to him. But like any good leader, Amaro needs to be comfortable changing his mind when the facts change. And while no one can empirically state that Pedro is definitely a better option that Moyer, Amaro Jr. has a responsibility to find out.

The easier thing would have been to shuttle the better performing Happ to the bullpen so as not to hurt Moyer’s feelings. The right thing to do was to put Moyer in the pen.

Jamie Moyer has ever right to be pissed about all of it.

Just not like this.