Charlie Manuel

It was 4:47 p.m. Sunday when a beaming Charlie Manuel sauntered into his team's clubhouse. He found Freddy Galvis, shook the diminutive hero's hand, and disappeared to pack for an eight-game road trip. As Galvis described his elation upon hitting an unbelievable home run that sealed a 3-2 Phillies victory to a throng of reporters, Kevin Frandsen jumped up and down to make Galvis laugh. A few lockers away, Carlos Ruiz struggled to pull green shorts over his wrapped right leg. Across the room, Ryan Howard dismissed the notion that a left knee injury that apparently has afflicted him since spring training was serious.

FIFTH STARTER. Fifth of five. That was supposed to be Jonathan Pettibone's job while John Lannan found himself on the disabled list. It is a job with low expectations and, simultaneously, with real meaning - especially for a team like the Phillies, a team that has had so much trouble generating consistent offense and that has been underwater in the standings for weeks. Pettibone arrived unheralded. No one knew what to expect, not really. When he pitched well in his first game, the Phillies were not even ready to acknowledge immediately that he would get a second start.

Forty games in, here's all we know about the Phillies for sure: They are flawed, but not finished. Sure, they can be infuriating. Twenty-two times in their first 40 games they scored three or fewer runs. In 16 of those games, they scored fewer than two. They have been blanked five times. There are days when you wonder whether manager Charlie Manuel is throwing out a lineup filled with eight-hole hitters. The biggest question coming out of spring training was the right arm of Roy Halladay, and that's one of the few conclusive answers the Phillies have received.

CLEARWATER, Fla. - Ryan Howard got married in 2012. As for the rest of the year, there wasn't much worth remembering. After undergoing surgery to repair a ruptured left Achilles' on Oct. 12, 2011, Howard didn't get into a major league game until the year was half over, on July 6, when the Phillies were in last place and 13 games out of first. He played in 71 games in 2012; in his six previous major league seasons as an everyday player, Howard never played in fewer than 143 games.

Charlie Manuel hates finishing second, as he did in the Manager of the Year voting - to Lou Piniella, whose Cubs won five more games but spent $20 million more than Manuel's Phils. He won't mind finishing second in this race. Especially not to Brad Lidge, the closer whose perfection meant validation for Manuel, so often ridiculed, so seldom appreciated, and now, forever, a Winner. Manuel believes in roles for his bullpen, and he stuck to his formula. Manuel believes in winning with power, especialy in a park where even minimal power is magnified.

CLEARWATER, Fla. - The last month was uncomfortable, the last day infuriating. After a dozen years as a coach in the Phillies organization, Greg Gross said he knew his job security was in question when he read an early September comment in The Inquirer from manager Charlie Manuel that insinuated it would not be a bad idea to make some changes in the coaching staff. "We knew then that people were gone," Gross said last week by telephone from Scottsdale, Ariz. "We didn't know who or how many, but you knew some guys were not going to be back.

It's early until it isn't. For a baseball team, there is a fine line between maintaining perspective and complacently allowing things to slip away. The Phillies have to watch that line very closely this year, especially when it comes to their pitching - particularly the bullpen. A week in, there are legitimate questions about the bullpen, and the outfield defense, and the lack of power. But the real question, after two lost series, is just what the Phillies accomplished during their seven weeks in Clearwater, Fla. Spring training was extended a bit because of the World Baseball Classic.

As a hitting instructor, Charlie Manuel helped the Cleveland Indians score more runs than any other team in the last half-century. Now the club wants him to be the manager who brings Cleveland its first World Series title since 1948. The Indians hired Manuel as manager yesterday, ending a search that took general manager John Hart outside the organization but wound up back at the Indians' dugout. Manuel has never managed in the major leagues but is a favorite amomg players in Cleveland and has worked for the last six years as the Indians' hitting instructor.

Charlie Manuel isn't as brainy as Steve Jobs, as brash as Donald Trump, or as bizarre as Ted Turner. He doesn't do pie charts, power lunches, or peer appraisals. And the last time we saw him in a suit, that gaudy pin-striped number he wore to the 2008 victory parade, he looked more upstart mobster than upper management. But don't let the Phillies manager's down-home demeanor and syntactical struggles fool you. While his Citizens Bank Park office might not have a Wharton diploma on its walls or any of Tom Peters' books on its shelves, he possesses the leadership savvy and skills of the chief executive officer of a Fortune 500 company.

Jeff Trout tries never to miss a Los Angeles Angels game since his son, Mike, is a fixture in the outfield. And Jeff Trout enjoys seeing his old manager, Charlie Manuel, guide the Phillies, a team the elder Trout has been following his entire life. Jeff Trout is a former minor-leaguer who reached as high as double A. After finishing second in the nation in batting at Delaware in 1983, he was drafted in the fifth round by the Minnesota Twins. He began his pro career with the single-A Wisconsin Rapids, where his manager was Manuel.

MIAMI - Ryan Howard is not a fatalist except when it comes to matters of health, those of which are generally beyond the $125 million first baseman's control. He will take his chances. A cortisone shot reduced the pain from inflammation in his left knee. A doctor examined it and proclaimed him fit for action. So manager Charlie Manuel inserted Howard into his customary cleanup spot Tuesday after a two-game absence. In the short term, the injection did its job, as Howard delivered three hits and three RBIs in a 7-3 victory.

MIAMI - Among the items littered on the desk in the visiting manager's office at Marlins Park: three packages of Tylenol and a can of Sierra Mist. The cold beverage was open, a refreshing treat for a pleasant night at the ballpark. The pain medication, however, was unopened. Apparently it wasn't a necessity for Charlie Manuel following a rarity of a game for his team in 2013: a stress-free victory. The manager and a legion of heartburn-heavy Phillies' fans got a rare treat last night, when Ryan Howard returned to the lineup and led his team to a 7-3 win over Miami.

MIAMI - When Charlie Manuel entered the dugout at Marlins Park a few hours before a 7-3 Phillies win Tuesday, the 69-year-old manager was unnoticed. He yelled in a high-pitched voice to call attention. "Ta-da!" After 7:11 p.m., when the first pitch was thrown, it was as if Manuel snapped his fingers and everything went right for the Phillies. They scored seven runs, their most in a game in 19 days. Their 15 hits tied a season high. They pitched with efficiency, led by Tyler Cloyd.

It was 4:47 p.m. Sunday when a beaming Charlie Manuel sauntered into his team's clubhouse. He found Freddy Galvis, shook the diminutive hero's hand, and disappeared to pack for an eight-game road trip. As Galvis described his elation upon hitting an unbelievable home run that sealed a 3-2 Phillies victory to a throng of reporters, Kevin Frandsen jumped up and down to make Galvis laugh. A few lockers away, Carlos Ruiz struggled to pull green shorts over his wrapped right leg. Across the room, Ryan Howard dismissed the notion that a left knee injury that apparently has afflicted him since spring training was serious.

WHEN YOU are scuffling, there is no such thing as a little mistake. Domonic Brown's sixth-inning throw to first is misplayed into an eventual unearned run . . . Cliff Lee's ninth-inning baserunning gaffe gives dominant Cincinnati Reds closer Aroldis Chapman a two-out save opportunity . . . and there you are again yesterday, tortured, angered, ready to swear off the local nine for maybe the 10th time just in the last month. Why didn't Charlie Manuel use an everyday player to run instead of a pitcher?

Today on PhillyDailyNews.com: Check out David Maialetti's photo slideshow from yesterday's come-from-behind win. THE MADNESS unfolded as Jonathan Pettibone sat in a chair in the Phillies' clubhouse, his right arm wrapped in ice after another impressive outing. The rookie who pitched the first seven innings against the Reds had just watched Freddy Galvis foul off a 1-0 pitch in the ninth when he felt the crowd roar. "There was a delay" on the television in the clubhouse, Pettibone said, "so you could hear the screaming.

MIAMI - They closed the upper deck at Marlins Park, a stadium that has lived for 14 months of baseball. Interest in the home team is infinitesimal. The Marlins scored 2.66 runs per game before Monday, and that is fewer than any major-league team since the game integrated in 1947. They were not the worst offense in the building on this night. The Phillies came to Florida with hopes of eclipsing .500. After a 5-1 embarrassment, they must win the next two to secure a series victory against the National League's worst team.

You could say that Kyle Kendrick kept the Phillies in the game on a cloudy, drizzly afternoon in which he did not have stellar command. Then the beleaguered bullpen put a match to it. That would be only half the truth. Full disclosure: The Phillies' offense was never in this game against Bronson Arroyo and the Cincinnati Reds, and so this momentum-deprived season continued Saturday at Citizens Bank Park with a 10-0 loss. It was the sixth time the Phillies have been blanked, matching the team's total number of scoreless games for the entire 2012 season, which, if you recall, wasn't exactly a celebrated one. Only the woeful Miami Marlins have been shut out more often.

The scoreboard has been kind to the Phillies. While they slip, slide and fall in their modest pursuit of reaching .500, the Atlanta Braves and Washington Nationals have failed to pull away. It's hard to believe that any team could have a worse on-base percentage than the .304 the Phillies have posted through 41 games. But five teams do, and the Nationals, at .292, are one of them. The Braves, meanwhile, started 13-2 and have gone 9-16 since. The misfortune of others will not matter if the Phillies cannot fix their myriad problems.