Beerleaguer for brunch: Howard does his thing

Ryan Howard tied teammate Chase Utley for the league lead in home runs (25) an inning after the Cardinals tied the game off J.A. Happ and Chad Durbin. The Phillies held on to win 4-2 and host the series finale this afternoon.

The Phillies' cleanup hitter is nothing if he’s not unique. His 80 RBIs sets a new club record for RBIs before the All-Star break. At the same time, he’s set to annihilate his own Major League record for most strikeouts in a season. Here’s what we know about Howard, in this his fourth season as a regular contributor. He can’t field and he’ll start slowly. During this time, other players will need to carry the offense, and Beerleaguer will entertain a flood of posts on why he should be traded. He’ll become more productive as the season wears on. Eventually, he’ll get the point where he can carry them, like last night, for example. For the sake of comparison, measure him only against himself. He's a different animal.

Moving on, Happ had an encouraging start; I’d go so far as to call it a very good outing. Charlie Manuel kept him in too long. His command wasn’t great (105/60 K/B), but we see that he can retire batters via the strikeout, and lefties have notched just one hit against him in two starts. He's poised. He’s not afraid to pitch inside to right-handed batters, but his approach to righties, in general, still needs work.

The ninth inning was more stressful than it should have been for Brad Lidge, but this was a game the Phillies really needed, so the pressure was on. And how about Clay Condrey striking out the side in a high-leverage eighth inning? His pitches were actually quite nasty.

Comments

[Bedrosian's Beard]

It was nice outing by Happ, great bomb by Howard and it was good to see a Phils pitcher (Lidge) dialing up 96MPH...

[J. Weitzel]

Lidge was bringing the heat, wasn't he? Man.

[Inside/Outside the Parker]

JW: "For the sake of comparison, it's worth measuring him only against himself."

Great statement on a number of levels. The most important, IMO, is that the numbers he is putting up are incomparable. He is the only one in his category. Not Pujols, not Bonds, not McGuire, not Aaron. Right now there is a space reserved for players that are doing what Howard is doing (a big space for a big man). That space includes only Mr. Howard.

Condrey: Anyone else notice that he was heavy on the breaking stuff last night? He actually looked like he had a decent slide piece. Perhaps it was just that he was locating it better last night? Who knows, but he certainly didn't look like the Condrey I know, and have learned to loathe.

[Ribbies]

A series win today would be great. I expect we'll see Jenkins today and I'm sensing a big game. He has good numbers against Looper and is due.

[Bedrosian's Beard]

Jenkins is due. I refuse to think he's this bad. He's probably a guy that needs consistent ABs to get it together, but it's hard to do that when you're sucking.

[timr]

Condrey was really fooling them. He looked fantastic. Still not sure about Happ as a long term solution--I mean, he pitched well, but the Cards hit him really hard, those hits just happened to be right at people or just foul.

[Matt]

Condrey impressed me the most. His stuff was filthy last night, it was moving all over the place. Does Charlie know something? Bringing him into the eighth inning of a tight ballgame? Not saying he will, but if he can keep up what he did last night, that's like adding a new arm in the bullpen without giving anything up.

[Bedrosian's Beard]

I haven't really thought of the pitches Condrey knows how to throw, but I wonder if he's worked with Lidge?

[Jay]

Happ sent to Pigs

[vegas]

It's funny how the last two wins came with Happ on the mound. Lidge got it done and thats what matters. The big out came with Albert up and a runner on. The close ups of Lidge on HD tv showed some serious sweat and shakes. But, bottom line he is still perfect. Big save for him, on many levels.

[Wes Chamberlain]

Not to rain on anyone's parade, but the whole "Howard sets new record for most RBIs by the All-Star break" thing is a little bogus.

2008, games played before All-Star game: 92 (with 4 more to go).

2006, games before All-Star: 87

1976, year year Lusinski set previous record, games before All-Star: 81

So it took Howard 11 extra games to break the record.

That being said, and for all of Howard's hitting woes this season, his RBI total has been nothing short of impressive. Baseball boils down to scoring more runs than your opponent and Howard is driving in runs at a high rate. Now if he could only start getting on base more often when he isn't hitting with RISP, then maybe that could help Burrell get some more RBIs and help the team win a few more games.

The good news is that Howard has been hitting better of late and it is not unreasonable to think he could have a monster second half.

For all the complaints about Ruiz, Feliz, Jenkins and Victorino, the two biggest problems for the offense right now are Jimmy Rollins and Chase Utley. When Jimmy gets on base and scores, we tend to win, but he hasn't been doing that enough this season. And Chase has been bad with runners on for about a month and a half now. If Jimmy, Chase and Howard are doing what they are capable, what we are getting from the secondary hitters in enough.

Then there are the pitching issues, but that's a whole other post...

[baxter]

So were his two starts just advertisements?

[GM-Carson]

Trading Ryan Howard never made sense, and won't make sense until he's in his final year of arbitration and it's clear that the Phils can't/shouldn't lock him up for years afterward. He is coming along. Weitzel nailed it when he said he can't field and starts slow, no truer words have ever been typed. However, Blaster Master is coming along and watch out for a big 2nd half.

On Jenkins, he's been terrible, but that leads me to believe he'll have a rebound 2nd half (as long as Charlie gets him some starts, and he should because Werth is not a full time player in my opinion).

[Lake Fred]

Well, I got to see the Phils "live" on ESPN last night in Houston. It was amazing that the inning that the Phils scored their first two runs and the inning when the Cards scored their two runs were the time that my wife decided that we needed to get into indepth conversations about stuff that had nothing to do about baseball. Luckilly she was off doing something else during the 8th and 9th innings.

There were a lot of surprises last night. The biggest surprise was Clay Condrey coming in and striking out the side in the 8th. I was shocked and dumbfounded. Another suprise was to learn that Howard was riding a 12 game hitting streak! Lidge looked surprisingly less than stellar last night, but he got the job done.

I loved Parker's post in the last thread about Mr. Irrelevant. Imagine that leading the league in HRs and RBIs is meaningless!!

I have also found a slight redeeming feature in Howard striking out frequently: it causes the opposing pitcher to throw at least 3 pitches. That's got to be better than popping up the first pitch to the third baseman.

[Hugh Mulcahy]

Happ went back to the Pigs but that doesn't mean he won't make another start for the big club after the break. Probably depends on how Myers looks Sat. night. Lots of bullpens around the league are gassed right now and with the break coming up, expect many GMs to designate guys who are rookies, etc. to make room for an extra reliever. See, e.g., van Benschoten in Pittsburgh.

[Dubs]

It was a pretty fun end of the game last night (first few innings took a longgggg time).

I don't want to rain on the Happ (who I thought was pretty good) and Condrey parades, but Happ did get a lot of hard hit balls to go right at fielders and Condrey faced three guys who shouldn't be on major league rosters, so let's not get too far ahead of ourselves.

Also, I wish someone would look up how many times Charlie this year has failed to pinch hit for the pitcher when he was losing his stuff, only to take him out in the middle of the next inning. It seems to happen way more often than it should, and again last night.

[Ribbies]

Did someone get called up when Happ went to the Pigs?

[Jimmie J.]

I'm surprised this hasn't surfaced yet: Right now, if you had to choose between Eaton or Happ as a starter in the rotation, who would you pick?

[Lake Fred]

Happ

[GoPhilsGo]

Happ. Give him a chance.

[Wayne]

After pitching well enough to earn his first major-league victory, but settling for a no-decision, Happ has been optioned to triple-A Lehigh Valley. The Phillies have recalled 31-year-old infielder Mike Cervenak in a move that makes some sense since they won't need Happ to start again before the All-Star break. Cervenak, who has never played in the majors, is batting .310 with seven homers and 52 RBIs for Lehigh Valley. He will give Charlie Manuel an extra bat off the bench during the final four games before the break, and Happ can be recalled next week to start at least once more before Brett Myers is ready to return from the minors.

[Alex]

Wouldn't the best comparison for Howard be Adam Dunn?