Phil Sheridan | Phils’ bargain boys saving the day

Scoring double-digit runs every game isn't the most reliable long-term solution to the Phillies' pitching crisis. It will just have to do until general manager Pat Gillick locates his Rolodex and gets cracking on a real fix.

This team deserves every effort from the front office. With a lot of help from the slumping New York Mets, these Phillies have managed to stay afloat in spite of injured pitchers, bad contracts and a stunning number of personnel mistakes.

Manager Charlie Manuel certainly will accept a little help from Gillick. Until that happens, though, the beleaguered manager has written out nightly lineups that should embarrass the heck out of the GM.

Of the roughly $96 million payroll Gillick had to work with this season, a little more than $55 million is doing approximately nothing to help this team win right now. A backbreaking $30 million is going for pitchers on the disabled list, while $7 million more goes to Jim Thome to play for the Chicago White Sox.

If you managed your money that way, you'd be living in a Dumpster and paying a hefty mortgage on someone else's house, but that's only the beginning.

Manuel has benched Pat Burrell and his $13.25 million for rookie Michael Bourn and his $380,000 salary. Manuel favors Carlos Ruiz ($380,000) over Rod Barajas ($2.5 million), and Greg Dobbs ($385,000) over Wes Helms ($2.3 million). Barajas and Helms were the two significant off-season additions Gillick made to the lineup.

Just not this lineup.

Before last night's game against the Cincinnati Reds, Manuel said again that he hadn't "given up" on Burrell and that the team's highest-paid player would resurface on the lineup card at some point.

But watching Bourn, and his impact on the lineup, it's hard to imagine when that might be.

The Reds have the worst record in the National League, and they were starting a rookie pitcher with the unfortunate name of Homer Bailey. Presumably, if the Baileys have a son who races cars, they named him Rex.

In other words, this is the kind of team that would have swept the Phillies earlier this season. With a four-game weekend series against the Mets looming, the Phillies absolutely had to take care of business against the Reds.

So Manuel went with Bourn hitting second behind Jimmy Rollins, dropping rightfielder Shane Victorino into the 6 hole behind Aaron Rowand. Speed at the top, power in the middle, and then another little shot of speed to get things going again at the bottom of the order.

No Burrell. No Helms. No Barajas.

It worked. Bourn energized the top of the lineup and Victorino did the same for the bottom third.

"I looked at that as, Victorino could knock in runs from that spot, but he could also use his speed," Manuel said. "He's capable of setting up runs for us there."

In the second inning, Victorino led off with a single. He broke for second, drawing the shortstop toward the bag as Dobbs lined a single through the hole into left. Victorino went to third and scored on Ruiz's single to center. After Jimmy Rollins hit into a double play, Bourn drew his second walk of the game.

With Chase Utley at the plate, Bourn broke for second, stealing his 11th base of the season. Ruiz alertly stole home, the first time a Phillie had done so in a decade. It was a smart play by Ruiz, but Bourn's speed created it.

Bourn was on base four times in the first five innings. Victorino hit a home run in the third. Ruiz drove in four runs out of the No. 8 spot.

"When we produce runs out of the bottom of our lineup," Manuel said, "we score quite a few. That was big for us last year."

On a night when Ryan Howard struck out four times (he also hit a two-run homer), the Phillies created runs with speed, with power, with smarts. On a night when Kyle Kendrick - the minimum-salaried emergency fill-in for Freddy Garcia ($10 million) - was making the third big-league start of his young life, the Phillies picked up a pretty nice win, not to mention a game on the Mets.

The Phillies are not going to score 11 runs every night. They are not necessarily going to get polished big-league performances every time they're forced to use a Kendrick or a Mike Zagurski or a J.D. Durbin. Gillick will have to come up with some kind of long-term solution if they're going to overtake the Mets.

For now, Manuel is buying him time, and at bargain prices.