"I NEVER THOUGHT I would write these words:

Ryan Howard should be accorded the same best-for-the-team logic that impelled Phillies manager Charlie Manuel to bench slumping leftfielder Raul Ibanez in Game 4 of the National League Championship Series against nasty lefthander Madison Bumgarner.

His replacement, Ben Francisco started the four-run bat-around that gave the Phillies a 4-2 lead and false hope.

Now, the Big Piece's game is in tatters.

In eight postseason games, baseball's most prolific cleanup hitter since he was the 2005 NL Rookie of the Year, has produced zero RBI. And he has been a liability on defense. The same slow-to-heal-completely left ankle sprain that caused him to miss 17 games and be ineffective for more than 2 weeks after his return to the lineup is probably as responsible for his poor footwork in the field as for his inability to drive properly off his back leg while hitting.

I salute the valor of still-wounded warriors Howard, Chase

Utley, Jimmy Rollins and Placido Polanco, gamers all. Polly will

require elbow surgery after the postseason, but he can field, run and put the ball in play. Utley, Howard and Rollins appear to

be no better than a collective

80 percent in the health department.

Ironically, Howard stroked a ground-rule double to left-center and a line single to center off

Giants lefthanded-Phillies killer Jonathan Sanchez in Game 2. But nobody was on base for

either hit.

Manuel does not figure to be swayed to bench Howard in favor of righty-swinging veteran Mike Sweeney. The 37-year-old veteran stroked a pinch-single batting for Jose Contreras in Game 2 of the National League Division Series. He served a 100-mph Aroldis Chapman

heater to shallow left-center in his first postseason at-bat.

But the numbers are the numbers. In eight games against the Reds and Giants, Howard is 8-for-28 for a deceptively decent .286. But this is Ryan Howard we're talking about, a colossus who can and has carried this ballclub for weeks at a time. Three of his hits have been doubles opposite the shift.

"I think when we get guys on base, I think he's definitely trying too hard," Manuel said yesterday. "I think that he wants to do something. I think that he wants to like feel like he's part

of something - I think that he's definitely trying too hard. He's thinking about, like, knocking runs in and things like that.

"I think if you notice sometimes when there's no one on base, he'll get some hits and he'll hit the ball. I think when he gets somebody on, I think that he realizes that he wants to be a part of it and he has to knock runs in. I think that he needs to slow down and, there again, just hit a couple of balls good, and things will happen for him.""