Photos: 2008 Phillies
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But for close to 24 hours, the leftfielder's status for yesterday's National League Division Series opener was in jeopardy.
On his final swing of batting practice during the Phillies' workout Tuesday at Citizens Bank Park, Burrell suffered some back pain. He walked gingerly off the field, down the steps of the dugout and into the Phillies clubhouse.
Manager Charlie Manuel was concerned enough that he arrived at the stadium at 8 a.m. yesterday to talk with Burrell and head athletic trainer Scott Sheridan.
"We went out this morning, did some running with it," Sheridan said. "He did fine with that."
But the Phillies weren't ready to clear Burrell to play. Manuel drafted two lineups, one with Burrell in leftfield and Jayson Werth in right, and one with Werth in left and Matt Stairs in right.
Sheridan and Manuel decided to let Burrell take batting practice, then re-evaluate the status of his back.
Burrell hit with his regular group in the cage, sending balls spraying to all fields without much discomfort.
When the lineups were announced, Burrell's name was included.
"It's like anything else," said Burrell, who missed a game earlier in the season with unrelated neck stiffness. "You have little flare-ups. You just have to stay on top of it."
Burrell finished 0-for-2, including grounding into a doubleplay, and also drew a walk. But he said he felt fine, and should be ready to play today.
Two days ago, when Rudy Seanez joined the Phillies for their pre-playoff workout, he acknowleged the fact that he might not actually play this postseason.
Sure enough, the veteran reliever was left off the 25-man playoff roster to make room for lefthander J.A. Happ.
"That was the toughest decision we had to make," Charlie Manuel said. "Seanez played a big part of our season, especially early on and all the way up through until about July . . . and he definitely did a tremendous job for us."
Seanez, who went 5-4 with a 3.53 ERA this season, spent close to a month on the disabled list with back and shoulder issues in August and late-July.
The Phillies wanted to keep Happ around in case they needed a reliever to pitch a significant amount of innings in the middle of a game or in extra innings.
What Phillies-Brewers playoff game would be complete without a parody of the famous Milwaukee sausage race? Apparently, not this one. Late in the game, three of the Phillie Phanatic's henchmen, dressed in pullover costumes that looked suspiciously like hot dogs, staged a race on the warning track. At the end, the Phanatic emerged from a tunnel and tackled the final "sausage" before he reached the finish line.
Longtime Flyers crooner Lauren Hart sang "God Bless America" during the seventh-inning stretch . . . Charlie Manuel's last postseason victory as a manager was in Game 3 of the American League Division Series between his Cleveland Indians and Jamie Moyer's Seattle Mariners on Oct. 13, 2001. Brewers lefthander CC Sabathia got the win for Cleveland. Moyer got a win in Game 2 of that series . . . The announced attendance yesterday was 45,929, the second-largest crowd in Citizens Bank Park history, behind the 45,991 at Game 2 of last year's NLDS series against Colorado . . . The Phillies are 8-6 in the first game of their 14 postseason series. They are 2-11 in Game 2s. *
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