Ryan Howard Is Over His Average April

And back on track. Check out his OPS broken down by month:

April (77 AB): 786 OPS
May (40 AB): 1.073 OPS
June (41 AB): 1.046 OPS

Howard’s power outage is no more.  His slugging was a meager .390 in April but has skyrocketed since, finally passing .530 the other evening. And you know what? It has absolutely NOTHING to do with strikeouts. He struck out in 28% of his plate appearances in April, 32% in May, and 26% in June. Strikeouts are essentially meaningless in regards to Ryan’s month-to-month plate production. There’s been this thought lying in the weeds that his production couldn’t be sustained because of the amount of times he whiffs up there, and that simply doesn’t bear out in the numbers.

Why? Well, when he does connect, he connects for some amazing power, and except for his slow April start, he’s been hitting sick line drives. 13 of his 21 hits in May and June have been for extra bases. What else is there to say but NICE.

With Howard and 2B Chase Utley striking the ball so well, this team is bound to score some major runs throughout the season. Hell, they’re already 4th in the Majors in runs and 1st in the NL. It’s up to the pitching to do their part now. Ryan’s doing his.