Often compared to Willie Stargell
1. He’s good. Real good: The Phillies lost to the Nationals last night, but that wasn’t the most important thing going on in that game. It was Ryan Howard’s continued dominance at the plate. Howard jacked his 49th homerun of the year, breaking Mike Schmidt’s single-season franchise record with a month left in the season. Howard has now hit an RBI in 9 straight games and homered in 6 of those games. His August will go down as the best month of the season by any player, as Howard hit 14 homeruns and 41 RBIs for the month. He also hit .348 and slugged .750 on the month and put up a stratospheric 1.214 OPS. The most incredible part of all this? Howard’s just 26 years old and playing in his first full season.
2. Santana strikes again: Who do you call when you need a win? Call on Johan Santana. The pitcher had a great start against the Kansas City Royals, who were actually on the brink of sweeping the Twins. He struck out 11 and pitched seven innings for his league-leading 16th win of the season. Johan just completed a truly special month of August. He went 4-0 with a 2.32 ERA and 47 strikeouts, first of any pitcher in the month. The win improved him to 7-0 after the break this year and 37-3 after the break since 2003. The Twins won 3-1 and are a half-game out of the Wild Card.
3. Where did this come from?: Putting it lightly, Astros pitcher Andy Pettitte sucked the first half of the season. He posted a 5+ ERA each of the first three months and allowed opponents above a .300 batting average. But now, Pettitte is starting to produce like a machine. In August he put up a 2.43 ERA and 44 strikeouts, both very comparable to Santana’s numbers above. Though he just went 3-2 and still has a .500 record on the season, Pettitte is looking more like himself from last year, when he went 17-9 with a 2.39 ERA. Last night he pitched seven innings while only allowing 5 hits and 1 earned run to the Brewers. With Pettitte in addition to Roger Clemens and the recently resigned Roy Oswalt on the pitching staff, the Astros are looking good as they head into September.
4. New York, New York: Both teams from the Big Apple had particularly good months. The Mets finished the month with a loss yesterday but overall posted an outstanding 19-8 record. They gained the best record in baseball, 82-50, in the process. The Mets are 15.5 games ahead of the second-place Phillies in the division, still the only double-digit lead of any team, and they would be 11 games up on the Cardinals if they were in the same division. That’s quite an accomplishment considering the Cards have finished with the best record in the NL for two straight years and are in second this year. And how `bout them Yanks? For them it’s been a great month for them and a bad month for their rival, you-know-who. NYY was tied with the BoSox on August 1, but after their success and Boston’s struggles have opened up an 8 game lead. By the way, that is the second-largest lead in all of baseball. So if you don’t think another Subway Series is a reality this season, you better reconsider.
5. Back to the Bay: After lasting two years with the Boston Red Sox, David Wells is moving on in his career once again. Wells is going back to the San Diego Padres, his hometown team who he played with in 2004. Wells was sent to Cali in a trade for a minor league catcher. Padres GM Kevin Towers thinks Wells is the difference for this team as they look to keep a lead in the Wild Card race.
