Phillies Notebook: With regulars back together, Phillies hope for more offense

There was an unfamiliar sight on the dry erase board that hangs outside the entrance to the Phillies clubhouse: a lineup that featured all of the team's Opening Day regulars. For only the eighth time this season, the Phillies' eight starting position players took the field at the same time.

"It's good to have everybody out there," manager Charlie Manuel said. "See if we can't start scoring some more runs."

Runs have been hard to come by for the Phillies over the past week. They entered last night's game against the Astros having scored fewer than three runs in four of their previous five games. During that stretch, they hit only .214, while losing three of those five.

The Phillies are hopeful the recent lull is exactly that: a brief respite in what had looked like an offensive resurgence. From July 22 to Aug. 18, the Phillies hit .290 and averaged 5.4 runs per game while winning 20 of 25. With Chase Utley and Ryan Howard both back in the lineup - Placido Polanco joined them last night after a 1-night absence because of elbow soreness - the Phillies hope to end the season on a tear.

Thus far, that tear has been slow to develop. In their first seven games after Utley's return from thumb surgery last Tuesday, they hit .252 and averaged 4.1 runs. In their first three games after Howard returned from a sprained ankle on Saturday, they were outscored, 11-9.

"It's just a down year for us, as far as our production," Manuel said. "I don't know. I think about it a lot. The pitching has been really good. Our offense, we're very capable of scoring runs. I think everybody knows that. For some reason, we just haven't."

Injuries have played a big part. The last time the Phillies played consecutive games with all eight of their regulars in the lineup was the second week of the regular season. Overall, last night was just the seventh game they played with their exact Opening Day lineup. They played one other game with all eight regulars, May 19 against the Cubs, when Jimmy Rollins batted seventh.

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