Paul Hagen: As Rollins slumps, so slump the Phillies

A SINGLE BASEBALL game has hundreds of interrelated parts, all of which influence which team ultimately tumbles onto the field to celebrate after the final out and which trudges disconsolately back to its clubhouse.

Still, for your Philadelphia Phillies, there seems to be one factor that stands out.

If Jimmy Rollins has a good game, if he's on one of his J-Rolls, there's a better than even chance that the Phils will win.

If he doesn't, if he's not, the exact opposite is true.

That's one of the reasons Rollins was voted the National League's Most Valuable Player in 2007, a tip of the cap recognizing how integral he was to a team that made it to the playoffs for the first time in 14 years.

He batted .346 with a .388 on-base percentage in Phils wins that year, .232 and .288 in losses.

There's also a cruel flip side to stats like that, though, and the 1-8 homestand that ended yesterday with a desultory 2-1 loss to the last-place Baltimore Orioles evoked it from yet another sellout crowd at Citizens Bank Park.

Rollins went 0-for-4 and with each succeeding out, the boos seemed just a little louder. And while that backlash would seem to be behavior that defines the term "front-runners" - Rollins' memorable description of the paying customers last August - that's a different discussion for another time.

What is more pertinent at the moment is what manager Charlie Manuel can or should do about his shortstop's slump with the current losing streak now at six games and counting going into tomorrow night's World Series rematch against the Tampa Bay Rays at Tropicana Field.

Manuel is in a pickle. He needs Rollins to hit. And he's an old-time baseball man who firmly believes that good players will end up where they should be, that a prolonged early slump will almost surely be balanced by an equally prolonged hot streak before the season is over.

At the same time, when the losses start piling up, it's difficult to resist the impulse to shake things up a little.

Manuel has already tried resting Rollins, already tried briefly dropping him in the order. In two games earlier this month Rollins batted sixth . . . and went 5-for-8. Since returning to the top of the order, he's 7-for-47 (.149). The Phillies are 3-8 in those games.

So it was probably inevitable after yesterday's loss that Manuel was asked if it might not be a good idea to drop Rollins in the order and leave him there for a while.