Charlie Manuel

PHOENIX - Jimmy Rollins never shed his batting gloves. With the tying run 90 feet away, he tapped one to first base that sealed a 3-2 Phillies loss. Rollins retreated to the clubhouse with the rest of his downtrodden teammates and went straight to one of the five laptops in the middle of the room. For 16 minutes, Rollins watched. Dressed in full uniform, he moved the mouse with his right glove. He tapped on the keyboard with his left glove. He stood up, pretended to swing, and pulled off his No. 11 jersey.

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.

PHOENIX — Every Phillies hitter had to pass Charlie Manuel before stepping into the on-deck circle Saturday. The manager positioned himself at the top of the dugout steps for the entirety of a 3-1 victory over Arizona. He talked strategy with Michael Young. He patted Ryan Howard on the back. He shook his head, slammed his fists together, and watched more offensive futility. "I was thinking there during the game," Manuel said. "We have 125 games left. We're going to hit. " On this night, three runs patched together by walks, singles, stolen bases, wild pitches, and sacrifices were enough despite 11 stranded runners.

The next time Domonic Brown hits a home run, he will achieve a career high in that department. In his limited playing time in 2011 and 2012, the Phillies outfielder hit five home runs each year. He got to that number a lot quicker this season, driving the ball out of the park in the first two games of the weekend series with the Miami Marlins to reach five in 97 at-bats. If he continues on his current pace, he will flirt with hitting 30 home runs this season. "I don't think that's out of the realm," manager Charlie Manuel said before Saturday night's game against the Marlins.

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.

PHOENIX - Jonathan Papelbon walked to the bullpen in the sixth inning Sunday, as he does every time the Phillies play. The night before, he had thrown 29 pitches to record five outs because manager Charlie Manuel was desperate for a victory. That put his availability for the series finale in doubt. Mike Adams waited for Papelbon to arrive before disclosing his own news. The setup man asked the closer if he could pitch. "I'm good to go," Papelbon told him. "Good," Adams said, "because I'm not. " Adams was sidelined by back spasms he said occurred within the last five minutes of batting practice before Sunday's 4-2 win over Arizona.

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.

The banquet season is almost over for Charlie Manuel, who yearns for something other than hefty dinners and handshakes. He wistfully spoke Monday about new batting cages installed in Clearwater, then said there are many "ifs" on his roster from the lineup to the defense and the pitching. "I'm excited about our bullpen," Manuel said before the 109th Philadelphia Sports Writers Association's banquet at the Crowne Plaza in Cherry Hill. So there is that, with two weeks until Phillies spring training opens.

SAN FRANCISCO - The trio responsible for transcribing Charlie Manuel's Monday afternoon news conference, a task that for them must be the equivalent of graduate school, were moving as doggedly as Roy Oswalt through a stop sign. With an off-day in the National League Championship Series now tied at one game apiece, the Phillies' manager was in an expansive mood during an entertaining session with a few dozen sportswriters in a basement conference room at AT&T Park. Maybe it was the relief produced by his team's Game 2 victory over the Giants on Sunday night.

THREE MONTHS ago, before the official announcement, Roy Halladay endorsed Cole Hamels as the new leader of the Phillies' rotation. Halladay had started 10 straight times on Opening Day, dating back to his days in Toronto, but in the early part of spring training the aging veteran acknowledged it was Hamels' time. "It should have been his spot a long time ago," Halladay said in February about the then-undecided assignment. "I think it's something he's going to embrace . . . I talked to him about it when we're going out and doing drills, stuff like that, it's time for him now to kind of step up and take charge in those situations and establish himself as the head of the staff.

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.

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.

IT WAS AN opportunity, not a necessity. That's what Charlie Manuel said of his decision to keep Chase Utley out of the lineup last night, despite the fact that the Phillies were coming off an off day and would enjoy another one tomorrow. With lefty Scott Kazmir on the mound and a day game today, Manuel decided that he would take advantage of the opportunity to get his 34-year-old second baseman 3 days of rest in a 4-day span. "I saw that it was an opportunity to kind of give him a blow," said Manuel, adding that the chance to "monitor him" and "get him off his feet" would be "good" for his star.

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.

Even though the Phillies were off on Monday and have another day off on Thursday, manager Charlie Manuel decided not to start second baseman Chase Utley against the Cleveland Indians on Tuesday at Citizens Bank Park. Utley's replacement, Kevin Frandsen, hit a solo home run in the first inning. Because of his chronically injured knees, Utley played in a total of 186 games over the previous two seasons. This year he had appeared in each of the Phils' first 39 games, making 37 starts.

PHOENIX - The Phillies won but Charlie Manuel was distracted. He uncapped a blue marker and doodled on his worn lineup card late Saturday night in the desert. He never lifted his head when asked about his hitters' finally executing in key situations to snap a three-game losing skid. The 69-year-old manager mumbled. He repeated a message heard so frequently in the last 13 months, and his plodding tone suggested that even Manuel had doubts about it. "We don't need to get down and everything," Manuel said.

PHOENIX - Of the 32,785 people who filed into Chase Field on Mother's Day, there was one whose voice carried the loudest, with the convertible ballpark's roof closed. He was seated somewhere along the first-base line and he continually heckled Phillies first baseman Ryan Howard yesterday afternoon. "Swing . . . miss!" "Big spot, game on the line, no pressure!" "Eat fresh!" If nothing else, the man was creative in co-opting Howard's favorite sandwich brand's catchphrase into his material.

PHOENIX - Ryan Howard stepped to the plate in the 10th inning Sunday with the burden of 18 consecutive hitless at-bats. "Stop thinking," Howard told himself. "Don't try to think. " A man seated behind the Phillies dugout had heckled Howard all game. Now, he yelled again and everyone at Chase Field could hear. "Big spot!" the fan screamed. "Game on the line! No pressure!" A thrilling 4-2 Phillies victory emerged from Howard's bat. He snapped a fastball thrown by Matt Reynolds, an Arizona lefthander who had not allowed a run all season, for a two-run single.

PHOENIX - Jonathan Papelbon walked to the bullpen in the sixth inning Sunday, as he does every time the Phillies play. The night before, he had thrown 29 pitches to record five outs because manager Charlie Manuel was desperate for a victory. That put his availability for the series finale in doubt. Mike Adams waited for Papelbon to arrive before disclosing his own news. The setup man asked the closer if he could pitch. "I'm good to go," Papelbon told him. "Good," Adams said, "because I'm not. " Adams was sidelined by back spasms he said occurred within the last five minutes of batting practice before Sunday's 4-2 win over Arizona.