Ryan Howard on a Tear

Ryan Howard is a one-man wrecking ball. In a year when homers are down, and the AL may not have anyone with 40 homers, Howard is suddenly on pace to hit 48 or 50 in the NL. He now has 28 in 94 games, after hitting four in his last three games and 8 in his last 10. The dude was dreadful in April (.168 avg., 5 HR, 12 RBI), good in May (10 HR, 30 RBI, although only .234 avg for the month), but down again last month (5 HR and .234 avg., although RBI's held up well with 26). Now with a blazing start to July, he suddenly looks like an MVP candidate, leading the league with 84 RBIs, 12 more than his nearest NL competitor. BTW, Howard only needs 45 HR this year to have averaged 50 a year for his first three full years in the majors!

Josh Hamilton continues to amaze, with 93 RBIs in only 91 games. Dude is an inspiration, coming back from the depths of drug addiction that threatened to end the major league career of this prized prospect before it began.

Looks like Chipper Jones' .400 dreams are fading fast. He was batting .419 as late as June 11, and still at .394 entering July, but a recent 0 for 10 has dropped him from .388 to .375 in the space of 3 days.

Finally, how about that Roy Halladay? Pitched a 2-hit shutout tonight (took a 1-hitter into the 9th). Completed his 7th game in 19 starts--no one else in the majors has more than 3. There have been only 67 complete games pitched all year so far, so Halladay alone accounts for more the 10% of them! No one has pitched MORE than 7 complete games since 2004. At his current rate, Halladay would end up with 12--the last time anyone had that many was Randy Johnson, way back in 1999. No one's had more than 9 since.