John Mayberry

It's a Sunday in March, and Rich Thompson is a major-leaguer again. He's swinging in batting practice and Charlie Manuel's eyes follow every ball Thompson hits deep to right field. Hitting coach Greg Gross mimics the Phillies manager. No one says a word, and the 6-foot-3 outfielder who last season led the International League in runs scored keeps hacking. In the Phillies clubhouse, Thompson eats lunch at a table with Jimmy Rollins and John Mayberry Jr. He waits an entire game and finally his name is called.

CLEARWATER, Fla. - The best verbal pitches for John Mayberry Jr.'s succeeding as an everyday player in the majors won't come from the 6-foot-6 outfielder. He was a political science major at Stanford University and does some of the heaviest reading of any Phillies player. But he's typically succinct and modest. So Mayberry will let Shane Victorino, his outfield mate, do most of the talking. "He's pretty close to what I would consider a five-tool athlete," Victorino said.

Wishful thinking fills the balloons with air. The reality of a long season pops them, one by one. That's pretty much the story of the Phillies as they try to gain traction in this season of uncertainty. The obvious explanation holds true: Take Ryan Howard and Chase Utley away and this just isn't the team that won five consecutive National League East titles. It was wishful thinking to believe they could slap the pin-striped costumes on just anyone and get the same results.

Here is who plays where for the Phillies: ROTATION Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, Roy Oswalt, Cole Hamels, Joe Blanton CATCHER Carlos Ruiz, Brian Schneider FIRST BASE Ryan Howard, Ross Gload SECOND BASE Wilson Valdez, Michael Martinez, Pete Orr THIRD BASE Placido Polanco, Wilson Valdez, Michael Martinez, Pete Orr SHORTSTOP Jimmy Rollins, Wilson Valdez, Michael Martinez LEFT FIELD ...

Here are the salaries for the 2012 Phillies: Cliff Lee, $21,500,000 Roy Halladay, 20,000,000 dl-Ryan Howard, 20,000,000 dl-Chase Utley, 15,285,714 Cole Hamels, 15,000,000 Jonathan Papelbon, 11,000,058 Jimmy Rollins, 11,000,000 Joe Blanton, 10,500,000 Hunter Pence, 10,400,000 Shane Victorino, 9,500,000 Placido Polanco, 6,416,667 Ty Wigginton, 4,000,000 Carlos Ruiz, 3,700,000 ...

Relief pitcher Alex Concepcion hit three batters then gave up a sacrifice fly to Brian Bocock as the Lehigh Valley IronPigs outlasted the Gwinnett Braves, 8-7, in 15 innings. John Mayberry Jr. was 4 for 6 with a double, a homer, and three RBIs for Lehigh Valley.

MILWAUKEE - The Phillies have had trouble finding effective bats off the bench all season, but they can at least claim their pinch-hitters are clutch when needed. Ross Gload's game-winning, pinch-hit single Wednesday made him the third Phillies pinch-hitter this season to contribute a walk-off hit. John Mayberry Jr. did it on opening day, and Ben Francisco did it June 24. The last time the Phillies had three walk-off hits by pinch-hitters in one season? That would be 1984, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

ATLANTA - Before Saturday's game, Jimmy Rollins, Ryan Howard, John Mayberry Jr., Ben Francisco, and Jason Heyward posed for photographs. The five African American players from both teams were wearing Negro League uniforms from the Philadelphia Stars and Atlanta Black Crackers. The baggy uniforms required everyone to cuff their pants high. On Sunday, both teams will wear throwbacks from 1974. Manuel is hoping for better luck. "They're terrible," Manuel jokingly said of Saturday's threads.

After some debate, the Phillies have decided to carry 11 pitchers for the National League Division Series against the Cardinals. The Phillies announced their roster this afternoon. Manager Charlie Manuel would not definitively say that was the plan at his news conference earlier today, but gave that indication. The 11 pitchers are righthanders Joe Blanton, Roy Halladay, Kyle Kendrick, Brad Lidge, Ryan Madson, Roy Oswalt, Michael Stutes, Vance Worley and lefthanders Antonio Bastardo, Cole Hamels and Cliff Lee. The Phillies will carry six infielders in Ryan Howard, Michael Martinez, Placido Polanco, Jimmy Rollins, Chase Utley and Wilson Valdez; six outfielders in Ben Francisco, Ross Gload, Raúl Ibañez, John Mayberry Jr., Hunter Pence and Shane Victorino; and catchers Carlos Ruiz and Brian Schneider.

This has been the month that John Mayberry Sr. knew would come for his son. "I'll tell you what, I knew he had it in him," the father said Thursday from his home in Overland Park, Kan. "He has worked hard his whole life in baseball and I knew he had this drive if he just kept working at it. I knew if he made some changes that eventually he would figure things out. " A lot of people had doubts about that as recently as early June, when...

The mist turned into rain, but that was not reason enough for a mass exodus Monday night from Citizens Bank Park. No, not yet. Then John Mayberry Jr. flied weakly to right, ending the sixth inning and the Phillies' failed rally in a 2-1 loss to the Washington Nationals. "Let's get out of here," one fan said to another in the ballpark's club seats. And so they left, as did many others. This brand of Phillies baseball is no more frustrating than when runners reach base and are primed to score.

The Phillies had squandered so many chances Saturday night until a 90-foot sprint by Jimmy Rollins. When the shortstop's right foot touched first base, he spread his arms to signal safe. First-base umpire Paul Emmel agreed. Rollins clapped his hands and pumped his fist. They were within two runs and pushed Boston to the brink. Then Shane Victorino swung at the first pitch and a wave of good vibes plopped into Red Sox shortstop Mike Aviles' glove. A six-game winning streak and chance to escape last place was skunked by a 7-5 loss to Boston.

Wishful thinking fills the balloons with air. The reality of a long season pops them, one by one. That's pretty much the story of the Phillies as they try to gain traction in this season of uncertainty. The obvious explanation holds true: Take Ryan Howard and Chase Utley away and this just isn't the team that won five consecutive National League East titles. It was wishful thinking to believe they could slap the pin-striped costumes on just anyone and get the same results.

It's a Sunday in March, and Rich Thompson is a major-leaguer again. He's swinging in batting practice and Charlie Manuel's eyes follow every ball Thompson hits deep to right field. Hitting coach Greg Gross mimics the Phillies manager. No one says a word, and the 6-foot-3 outfielder who last season led the International League in runs scored keeps hacking. In the Phillies clubhouse, Thompson eats lunch at a table with Jimmy Rollins and John Mayberry Jr. He waits an entire game and finally his name is called.

ATLANTA - There was one out in the eighth inning of a Phillies 4-2 victory Tuesday when John Mayberry Jr. stepped onto the Turner Field diamond for the first time. This season is 24 games old, and for all of the consternation over a feeble offense, there are still moments like this. Mayberry had struck out in 17 of his 49 at-bats, a higher percentage than any player in baseball with as many times at the plate in 2012. Braves lefty Jonny Venters had struck out 17 of the 39 hitters he had faced, posting the highest strikeout-per-nine-innings rate in baseball.

PHOENIX - The Phillies lineup was late Wednesday morning in Arizona. A few players walked past the wall outside the visiting manager's office at Chase Field and saw nothing. Finally, once bench coach Pete Mackanin had written out manager Charlie Manuel's batting order on the official lineup card, he affixed it to the wall with masking tape. John Mayberry Jr. was one of the first to notice. He was sitting on a leather couch in the middle of the clubhouse with his noise-canceling headphones plugged into his phone.

PHOENIX - Hunter Pence is hitless in his last 15 at-bats, but that is not why he found himself on the bench Monday. Pence was sidelined by a sore left shoulder apparently caused by his diving for the ball on Sunday. Pence is day-to-day, Phillies general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. said, but he made that statement before a doctor saw Pence. That was scheduled to happen before Monday's series opener against Arizona. "He felt like he couldn't play," manager Charlie Manuel said.

SAN DIEGO - Another day of failure complete, John Mayberry Jr. plopped down at a laptop and began scrolling through the video. He saw the 87 m.p.h. fastball he popped to second base with the bases loaded in the first inning. Then there was another fastball he skied to right to begin the fourth. He swung and missed at a curveball and fastball in the sixth and then took a 93 m.p.h. fastball for strike three. And to top it off, he swung through another fastball in the ninth. But he at least took one pitch in that at-bat, a fastball that skipped past the catcher and allowed the Phillies to score an insurance run in Thursday's 2-0 victory.

WHEN IS the time? It wasn't in 2008, when the Phillies gave Raul Ibanez a third year on his contract to ensure that they would land his services. It wasn't in 2009, when they included blue-chip catcher Travis D'Arnaud in a deal for Roy Halladay. It wasn't in 2010, when they parted with a prized centerfield prospect in order to obtain Roy Oswalt. And it certainly wasn't in 2011, when they dealt highly touted first-base prospect Jonathon Singleton in a package for Hunter Pence, then demoted outfield prospect Domonic Brown to the minor leagues to learn a new position.

This is an excerpt by Daily News staff writer David Murphy, from the paper's Phillies blog, www.philly.com/HighCheese . THE EARLY part of the baseball season presents a challenge when it comes to evaluating the performance of a veteran who is on the downslope of his career. When a player is in his prime, an early-season slump is usually just that: a slump, a dry spell, a random dip in production that is destined to even out over the course of a 162-game season. It's why members of the Phillies' clubhouse would get that exasperated look on their faces in 2008 and 2009 when they fielded questions about their slow start.