Huh?… I’m sure you didn’t meant hitters don’t have peaks and valleys (slumps) during the course of the season. ;-)

It’s not that I want him to sit in April and May. It’s that I know there’s a hitter who doesn’t have to struggle early in the season. We saw it in ’06, no reason we shouldn’t be able to see it again. This “he’ll heat up when the weather heats up” talk is garbage – you’re a Major League player, making $10MM in the biggest arbitration victory ever, you should hit all season long. No excuses.

June- .280
July – .294
August- .307
September- .308

His homeruns show no correlation in the months, which I believe demonstrates why he is a streaky power hitter. I think the most telling stat is that through 233 career games in teh first half of the season, he has batted .251, and in the second half he has batted .310. I know you’re “steamed” and think he should sit, but would you have him sit every April and May for his career. I know you might be thinking he is batting 30 to 40 points under his average for these months, but I don’t think his June numbers will improve if you take away these at bats now and let him see the ball more, and hopefully better.

He just told Tim to be quiet tonight. I want to see him hit the ball hard in consecutive games though.

We need to see how he handles this over the next one or two months. This will tell us a lot about Howard, and what future he may have in Philadelphia. Is he a unique and talented as we all thought in 2006 or 2007, or is he perhaps the second coming, albeit a bit better, of Dave Kingman? Now is likely not the time to trade him, as what will he bring to us, being all screwed up? Others will see the downside, not an upside. Let’s give him some time, see how he handles himself and the mounting pressure. As I write this, he is 2-3 tonight, with an rbi double and solo homer.

I am not ready to give up on Howard, not yet anyway. Of course, many would say stupid me, I haven’t given up on the Phillies since I discovered them in the early 1970′s. I want Howard to be successful, and we need him to be successful. I think we all will have a better guage of Howard the man come the all star break.

Stay tuned ………………….

I’m not so concern with K’s as I am in seeing him produce the big RBIs. I’ll gladly accept those K’s if he can duplicate or come close to the RBI production of the past two years (149 in 2006 and 138 in 2007). I’m sure his manager AND team mates would feel the same.

One further note; As we know, there’s a long history of premier sluggers with a high ratio of SO’s to Abs throughout their career. What better example than our own Philly favorite, hall of famer Mike Schmidt. During his career, he led the NL in SOs four times, 2nd twice and 3rd three times. He is all time strike out king in Phillies history with 1883. Fans were slow to come around to appreciate him as a great player. He was often booed early in his career by negative “fans” with inaccurate perceptions of him being aloof and difficult. They whined and screamed about him striking out so much. I wonder if history will repeat itself with Howard.

The argument of “every ball he hits, he hits hard” is ludicrous because he’s struck out 1/3 of the time he’s been at the plate. And he hits into the shift more than often.

I also won’t buy the hot weather theory. You say he’ll never hit for average consistently, but can you explain his .313 average in 2006? By the way, that year he was hitting over .310 for most of April and May. He actually cooled off in June, July and August, going as low as .278, before heating up again into the .300s in September, a colder month. So I don’t buy the heat. Not at all.

Howard is capable of being a great, consistent hitter. He showed that. Last year he only improved to a .268 average. So can you say he’ll instantly pick it back up and hit well for the rest of the season? Not with his fluctuating splits.

I know he’s expressed frustration. I know he’s taken extra practice. I know all that. But he needs to sit. He needs time off. That’s the point.

As far as the calls for trading Howard, these theories are insane. Why would he want to trade Howard when he is in such a huge slump, thus selling at the lowest value possible. Howard does have poor numbers in April and May historically (if 3 years can be considered historically) and he always warms up right when the whether warms as well. This letter to Howard is outrageous. I don’t see any merit in writing it because he has expressed frustration himself, has taking extra batting practice, and has never made excuses except to say he’s in a slump.

Also, everyone knows he’s a strikeout machine. There is an overemphasis on them, but he does need to lessen the k’s. As far as seeing the ball, an angry letter like this will do nothing to help him see the ball.