June 17 -- LOOKING LIKE MVPs

Amid all the discussion of Chase Utley's early-season NL MVP candidacy, it has been easy to gloss over the fact that Ryan Howard and Jimmy Rollins haven't looked very MVP-like for most of the season.

Howard was batting .163 on May 7, and his strikeout total was rising at an alarming rate. Rollins, meanwhile, missed most of April with a sprained ankle before being benched June 5 for not running hard on a fly ball and falling into a slump over the past two weeks.

Then, last night happened.

Rollins went 3-for-5 with three RBIs on a first-inning leadoff home run and a two-run single that snapped his 0-for-11 slide with runners in scoring position. Howard went 3-for-5 with two opposite-field home runs, a triple and four RBIs. And the Phillies thumped the World Series-champion Red Sox, 8-2, at sold-out Citizens Bank Park.

"I'm not really worried in regards to Jimmy and Ryan," Shane Victorino told me last night. "It's just a matter of time until everyone starts clicking with Jimmy, Chase, Ryan, Pat [Burrell]. That's just the way our offense takes off."

We've seen glimpses of that potential. The Phillies have scored 20 runs in a game twice in one season for the first time since 1900. But the offense also has been inconsistent. It produces 21 hits Friday night, then leaves 15 runners on base Sunday.

Can you imagine the potential if Utley, Rollins and Howard get hot simulatenously?

Wow.

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More on Howard: Talked to hitting coach Milt Thompson before last night's game. He and Charlie Manuel have been preaching patience to their slugging first baseman. Here's the challenge for Howard: He wants to put up the numbers he's accustomed to, but because he has such fierce power, pitchers aren't giving him much to hit. So, Howard has been swinging at bad pitches out of the strike zone and getting himself out (he leads the majors with 97 whiffs, and he's batting only .224).

But Howard is also tied with Utley and Adrian Gonzalez for the NL-lead with 62 RBIs, and tied for second with Gonzalez, Dan Uggla and Lance Berkman with 19 home runs. He's 9-for-18 with four homers and 13 RBIs in his last four games, and in 37 games since May 7, he's batting .276 with 13 homers and 46 RBIs. More telling, he has struck out only 47 times in his last 145 at-bats after piling up 50 whiffs in his first 123.

"I think the production numbers are hard not to see," Manuel said. "He's right at the top of the league with people and that kind of speaks for itself. I'd like to see him cut his strikeouts. Like I said two years ago, he could hit .300. The more contact you make, the more hits you're going to get. The more hits, the more homers you're going to get."

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Martin Frank found himself dreaming of a Phillies-Red Sox World Series. Hey, it could happen. You'd get no complaints from me. Any excuse to return to my college roots in Boston and scarf down some Chowdah sounds like a good idea to me.