April 19 -- GAME 11 WRAP: BURRELL WHO?

BY SCOTT LAUBER

So, here's how this newspaper-writing thing works: As a beat writer, you get access to Charlie Manuel and the players before the game. Usually, that's when you gather all or most of the information that will appear in the Phillies notebook. But before night games, it's also helpful if you can pick up a few pregame nuggets that can be included in the game story. And, for about eight innings Saturday night, it was shaping up perfectly for me.

You see, earlier in the day, I had asked Manuel about Raul Ibanez, who quietly has had a stellar start to his Phillies career. He has popped a few home runs, but we always knew he could hit. What has impressed me about Ibanez are the little things. He has played relatively well in left field. He runs the bases well (not fast, but intelligently). He doesn't seem to make many mistakes. I don't know why this is particularly surprising. Ibanez has been a good player for a while. But he also has played the past five seasons in Seattle, where the glare of the East Coast-oriented spotlight rarely shines. I guess I'm saying that I -- and judging from the e-mails I received after the Phillies signed him to a three-year, $31.5 million contract, many of you, too -- didn't realize just how good he is.

So, I asked Manuel for his early impressions of Ibanez.

"So far, for us, he's proved that he plays a steady left field, and he's definitely a good baserunner," Manuel said. "He's been taking the extra base. He tags up on balls and moves up on a base, especially when the ball is hit deep in the outfield. He gets a jump off third. You can play contact baseball with him. He's done a good job for us. From what I've seen so far, he plays the game hard, and he wants to play it right."

A few hours later, almost on cue, Ibanez laced a one-out single in the eighth inning, then went from first to third on Jayson Werth's single to center, a baserunning play that I rarely saw Pat Burrell make during the past three years. Ibanez, who also homered earlier in the game, scored on Pedro Feliz's sacrifice fly, and at the time, he was the go-ahead run.

My game story was golden. I mean, after all, Brad Lidge never blows a save, right?

Well ...

So, none of that stuff about Ibanez appeared in your Sunday News Journal. Good thing, too, otherwise my colleague Martin Frank wouldn't have had anything new to write today when Ibanez popped a walk-off, two-run homer against Padres reliever Edwin Moreno.

Anyway, check out Ibanez's numbers through 11 games with the Phillies:

44 AB, 12 R, 17 H, 4 2B, 1 3B, 5 HR, 10 RBI, 4 BB, 6 K, 1 SB, .438 OBP, .864 SLG, .386 AVG

Not too shabby -- and that's just the statistics you can quantify. It's the little things, like going from first to third on a single to center field, that make him a worthwhile replacement for Burrell.

***
Don't forget to weigh in on our reader poll below: Should the Phillies start a new seventh-inning tradition and play Harry Kalas' rendition of "High Hopes" during every game this season?