Manuel has followed his gut back to the National League Championship Series. He has discovered land with some of his moves, but other times his Santa Maria has sunk.
In Game 4 of the division series, Manuel removed leftfielder Raul Ibanez from the game as part of an eighth-inning double switch and replaced him with the more fleet of foot Ben Francisco.
As if on cue, Francisco covered a big chunk of ground at Coors Field and made a diving catch on a sinking liner hit by Troy Tulowitzki.
"I didn't even know he was out there," rightfielder Jayson Werth marveled after the series. "When it was hit, I said to myself, 'Raul is never going to get that.' Then, all of a sudden, Benny out of nowhere makes the play.
"I've seen Charlie make a lot of moves like that, and I've seen them work out more often than not. He's got a good feel for his players and the situation."
Sometimes Manuel's feel for a situation doesn't pay dividends.
In Game 2 of the NLCS on Friday in Los Angeles, he used his eyes and his feel in deciding that seven shutout innings and 78 pitches were enough for 37-year-old Pedro Martinez, who hadn't pitched in two weeks. Using an assortment of spotted fastballs and off-speed stuff, Martinez already had gone through the Dodgers' lineup 21/2 times. His last pitch, a fat fastball, had resulted in a long, hard-hit fly ball to center. Had someone more powerful than James Loney hit the pitch, the Dodgers might have tied the game right there at 1-all. After retiring Loney, Martinez pointed to the sky in praise, a sign that he believed he had done his job and it was complete. Manuel processed all this information in his head and gut and decided that Chan Ho Park, who had been electric the night before, would get the ball for the eighth inning.
