Ryan Howard says Kyle Schwarber is close enough to make the chase interesting. In a Phillies Extra interview, Howard said Schwarber can get near his Phillies home run record of 58 if he stays healthy and keeps producing the kind of stretches that turn a week into a power binge.
The timing is part of why the conversation lands now. The All-Star Game is returning to Philadelphia for the first time in 30 years, and Howard, who was the National League's Rookie of the Year in 2005 and won the NL MVP in 2006, was reflecting on the kind of stage that made him a star and the kind of hitter who can dominate it.
Howard knows the power picture from both sides of it. Twenty years ago, he launched baseballs into the Allegheny River in Pittsburgh and won MLB's annual Home Run Derby, a performance that came in the middle of the season when he was becoming the game's foremost power threat for a six-year stretch. He said Schwarber is must-watch TV, with a swing so violent and quick that the ball comes off his bat differently. Howard also said Schwarber was already at 32 homers and had gotten to 56 last year, which is why 58 does not feel out of reach if the run stays on track.
That is where the tease turns into a standard that only a handful of sluggers can meet. Howard said Schwarber gets hot streaks where he can hit five, six or seven home runs in a week, and he called the bursts video game-type stuff. He even said he would love to see someone launch a ball high enough to hit the bell on the fly, though he treated Charlie Manuel's story about Julio Franco doing it in batting practice as suspect. The story matters because the chase is no longer abstract: Schwarber is already within striking distance, and the question now is whether he stays healthy long enough to keep climbing.
Howard also made clear what he expects if a Home Run Derby ever comes to Citizens Bank Park. He said this group of hitters is different, bigger, stronger and faster, and that the ball travels farther now than it used to. For Howard, that means the sightlines would not just be about distance but about how far the ball could carry in a park built for noise, where one clean swing could turn a summer night into the sort of moment fans remember for years.
