Wish I could fly like Superman

There still seems to be a lot of talk about the Phillies inability to "protect" Ryan Howard in the lineup. I think people are missing the boat. There are only about a half dozen players that could protect Howard, and it would take a hitter of Howard's caliber to do so. You need a situation like Big Papi and Manny in Boston to make it worthwhile.

Philadelphia's failure is that the players batting behind Howard don't make anyone pay for putting Howard on base. That's what you need. Look at the Giants with Bonds, particularly when Jeff Kent was there. Kent never "protected" Bonds even though he drove in more than 100 runs in all 6 seasons in SF and had 3 years with 120+ RBI. The most important thing he did was make teams pay for walking Bonds.

For the 3 seasons of 2000-2002, Kent batted .313-69-273 in the No. 4 spot in the lineup (1,459 ABs). The Giants went 97-65, 90-72 and 95-66 in those seasons, and should have won the World Series in 2002. I couldn't get Kent's stats for 1997-99 with SF.

Philly's No. 5 hitters (excluding Howard) since the start of last year are batting .247-24-111.