The air has turned cool, the leaves are turning brown, and the NFL is ready for some football.
That’s right, Phillies fans, September is here once again, and we all know what that means: Ryan Howard is ready to kick his game up a notch.
Or actually, a few notches.
As the Phillies have returned to the top of the NL East on the strength of their dominant pitching and resurgent offense, much has been made of late of how amazing Howard has been during his career in the month of September.
To put Howard’s dominance in September in perspective, let’s do this: as of Monday, September 13th, Howard has now played the equivalent of one full season of games in the month of September. Howard has 153 games, totaling 716 plate appearances and 598 at-bats.
With that in mind, let’s look at Howard’s career numbers in September and analyze how good they would be if they were single-season totals in a given year.