Ryan Howard has a Rookie of the Year award and a National League MVP trophy. But there's something else he wants rather desperately.A stolen base.
Howard has played 360 games in the majors, and he has exactly zero stolen bases. He has made public and private pleas to Charlie Manuel to give him the green light, all to no avail. The Phillies would rather see Howard slowly trot around the bases after blasting a tape-measure home run than attempt to swipe a bag, and if you've ever seen Howard run, it's hard to blame them. It's not that Howard is slow. He's actually got some giddy-up for a big man. But it takes a while for him to get that 6-foot-4, 230-pound body in motion.
Last night, though, before he crushed homers No. 31 and No. 32 in an 11-1 rout of the Marlins, Howard used his legs to help the Phils score their first two runs. In the first inning, he beat out a potential double-play ball, allowing Jimmy Rollins to score his league-leading 93rd run. In the third, after drawing a two-out walk, Howard motored home from second base on Jayson Werth's RBI single to right.
"Sometimes [teams] just underestimate my speed and find out," Howard said. "It would be nice to get that zero out of the 'SB' column."
Maybe some day, Big Guy.
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Here's an update on Chase Utley. Don't panic just because he wasn't cleared yesterday to begin gripping a bat. He has a broken bone in his right hand. Unless Utley has superhuman powers that we don't know about, there was absolutely, positively no way he was going to be able to make it back in three weeks. Maybe by the last week of August. Maybe. (Thanks to Martin Frank for pinch-hitting for me last night).
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Check out this photo gallery from last night's game.
*Funny story about Mike Bacsik, who gave up No. 756 last night: On Dec. 11, 2001, he was part of the eight-player trade that sent Roberto Alomar to the Mets. During the 2001 season, Bacsik was named the Cleveland Indians' minor league Pitcher of the Year after going 12-5 with a 3.26 ERA at triple-A Buffalo. But, in 2002, he was only 5-5 with a 3.74 ERA for the Mets' triple-A club. A few years later, the Indians admitted they gave Bacsik their minor-league honor, at least in part, to pump up his trade value. The Mets fell for the ploy. After another disappointing season in 2003, he became a free agent. Since then, he's bounced around from the Rangers (2004) to the Phillies (2005) to the D-Backs (2006) to the Nationals (2007). He never reached the majors with the Phils but went 7-10 with a 4.55 ERA as a teammate of Howard, Shane Victorino, Geoff Geary, Chris Coste, Clay Condrey, Carlos Ruiz and others at triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.
Now, he'll be forever linked in history to Barry Bonds, which, apparently, is A-OK with Bascik.
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If my calculations are correct, we have three votes for Utley as the Phillies' MVP, one vote for Rollins and one for Cole Hamels. If you haven't voted (and many of you haven't), please check out the post below and weigh-in.
1 comment:
Bascik and his father were on ESPN radio yesterday talking about the homer with Mike Tirico. He seems like an extremely down to earth type of guy, and almost welcomed the status that he's now associated with. He had a sense of humor about it.
But when the inning ended after a Dave Roberts pop-up, he said he took that ball and wrapped it up in his glove for keeps, only to find that someone in the clubhouse had stolen it after the game.
I thought that was mildly interesting.
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