Howell’s Star and Average Continue to Rise

The Jack Howell rocket just continues to rise, scraping the stratosphere with astronomical numbers.

His batting average has increased 59 points in three days. Can you say inflation?

Of course, the multiplication of the matter is helped a whole lot by the fact that three days ago Jack Howell, Angel third baseman, was hitting .100, having just completed a stretch in which he went three for 46. But Thursday against Detroit, he went two for three with two RBIs and the batting average was at .127.

Friday against Toronto, he got two more hits, a double and a home run, and collected four RBIs. The batting average was at .149 and cruising.

Howell was one for three Saturday against Toronto and the batting average had jumped to .159 with a bullet.

“I’m feeling much better,” Howell said.

The one hit was a double that came with one out in the eighth inning and the Angels trailing the Blue Jays, 3-1.

A batter later, Claudell Washington doubled to score Howell. Johnny Ray then followed by singling to score Washington and tie the score at 3-3.

Ray eventually had the game-winning RBI when his sacrifice fly scored Dante Bichette from third in the bottom of the 10th inning, as the Angels won, 4-3.

Howell had bunted Bichette over to second in the 10th, after Bichette had reached on a throwing error by Toronto third baseman Tom Lawless.

Asked the obligatory, “Why the slump?” Howell answered with the obligatory: “If we knew the reason we got into slumps, we’d never get into them.”

What made Howell’s dry spell all the worse was the fact that it came at the beginning of the season and made for some ridiculously low numbers.

“It really gets magnified at the beginning of the season,” said Howell, who hit .254 with 16 home runs and 63 RBIs last season. “I’ve had slumps in the middle of the year and you can’t really notice from just looking at the batting average.”

Howell is only one of several Angel hitters in the dumps of late.

First baseman Wally Joyner was hitting .205 just three days ago. After a zero-for-four performance Monday against Baltimore, boos were actually heard in Wallyworld.

But it was Joyner’s single in the seventh that brought in Ray, who had led off the inning with a double, for the Angels’ first run.

Ray, the Angels’ leading hitter last season with a .306 average, had missed much of the season and got his first hit April 24.

But after doubling, he singled in Washington to tie the score, then won the game with a sacrifice fly. The fly ball was good enough to be a hit, but Toronto left fielder George Bell made a diving catch. Still, Bichette scored and the Angels won.

“It’s a long season and it takes everyone on the team,” Howell said. “Everyone has their slumps. You just got to keep pulling together and eventually you climb out of it.”