Jim Salisbury | With fans paying attention, Manuel and Gillick feel the heat.

Memorial Day is the unofficial start of summer, the time of year when a city's sporting attention turns to baseball - provided there's something worth watching.

Lately, the Phillies have been a pretty good show. They swept Atlanta over the weekend and returned home last night to another big crowd, which included over 8,000 walk-ups, folks who might have been enticed to come out and root, root, root for the home team by that big 13-6 win and those two homers by Ryan Howard on Sunday.

While attention in your club is good for TV ratings and hot dogs sales, it increases the focus of the microscope on your team's key decision makers.

General manager Pat Gillick has found himself under the high intensity light for not building a better bullpen.

Charlie Manuel felt some of the glare last night.

Welcome home, big guy.

Manuel was faced with a pivotal decision in the fifth inning of a 5-4 loss for his team.

The Phils were down 3-0 to Arizona lefty Doug Davis. There was one out and the bases were loaded. Pitcher Freddy Garcia was the scheduled hitter.

Manuel had a call to make and it was a lot tougher than choosing between bratwurst and Italian sausage at a Memorial Day cookout.

To pinch-hit or not pinch-hit?

Manuel had two righthanded sticks on his bench, Pat Burrell and Wes Helms. Sure, both were slumping, but both were also quite capable of catching a hanging curveball and putting it into the petunias for a granny. A gapper would also have been acceptable.

Do you take a shot at getting the lead with one swing, or do you let Garcia keep pitching?

From this seat, you go aggressive and give Burrell an at-bat. But Manuel doesn't sit in this seat. He couldn't afford the pay cut.

None of this is to suggest Manuel had an easy decision on his plate. Twelve outs is a lot to ask any bullpen to get, especially this one. As it turned out, Ryan Madson allowed two killer runs in the ninth, after Garcia delivered eight innings of three-run ball.

Who could have blamed Manuel if he had wished he was back in Cleveland when he was faced with the decision to let Garcia hit or not? American League managers don't encounter these dilemmas in the land of the designated hitter.

Manuel made his call and let Garcia bat. The Phils pitcher promptly hit the first pitch back to the mound, starting a back-breaking 1-2-3 double play.

Boos filled the stadium. Completely understandable.

After the game, Manuel was asked about his decision to let Garcia hit.

"I felt like he was throwing fine," Manuel said. "It was the middle of the game. I didn't think it was time to take him out."

Manuel was asked how much he considered pinch-hitting given the fact he had two righthanded bats (Burrell and Helms) on the bench.

"I knew who I had on the bench," he said. "I probably could have had [Hall of Famer Harmon] Killebrew there and I wouldn't have pinch-hit."

Next time Manuel lets Garcia hit in a big situation, he might want to flash the take sign. The Phils would have taken anything in that situation except a first-pitch double play. A strikeout would have kept the bases loaded for the top of the order.

Manuel's decision not to pinch-hit may have been another example of his lack of faith in the bullpen he has been given. If he's got a couple of shutdown arms out there, he might be more likely to take a shot at getting some runs with a pinch-hitter.

Asked if he would have been more inclined to pinch-hit if he had stronger middle relief, Manuel said, "Probably not."

Ultimately, Manuel's decision to let Garcia hit did not cost the Phillies a win. There are many decisions and situations woven into the tapestry of a game. One decision in the fifth inning last night was not fatal, but it was still interesting to gnaw on.

A lot of little things conspired against the Phils last night. Garcia hit a nice groove after the first inning and mixed his pitches well, a necessity with his MIA fastball. But he hurt himself by giving up a two-run homer to Conor Jackson on an 85-m.p.h. fastball two batters into the game.

The Phils hurt themselves in the bottom of the first by failing to score after getting a runner on third with one out.

And then there were the two runs allowed by Madson in the top of the ninth, which put the game out of reach, even with a three-run homer by Greg Dobbs in the bottom of the inning.

Madson nearly had pinch-hitter Tony Clark struck out on a 2-2 pitch which would have ended the frame before the Diamondbacks could have started their two-run rally. The pitch could have gone either way.

It was just one of the little things that went against the Phillies last night. And little things look like big things when people are watching.