Hot Howard Powers Phillies Over Braves

Ryan Howard has plenty of things left to accomplish this season, and it might be a little early for the Philadelphia Phillies to be looking ahead to next year.

Howard hit his 39th homer to surpass 100 runs batted in, sparking Philadelphia past the struggling Atlanta Braves, 9-6, Monday night.

Howard, the 2005 NL rookie of the year, tied Greg Luzinski at No. 10 on the team list for homers in a season with a two-run shot in the fourth. He has 51 games to catch the guy at the top, Hall of Famer Mike Schmidt with 48 in 1980.

“Usually, I don’t think about that kind of stat,” Howard said. “If it happens, it happens.”

Howard’s homer was the team’s first hit of the game and marked the 16th straight game in which Philadelphia has gone deep, tying the franchise record set in 2002. The Phillies broke the game open with a five-run fifth.

Even though the Phillies made a couple of deals before the trade deadline with an eye on the future, they won for the eighth time in 11 games to pull to within 2 1/2 games of wild-card-leading Cincinnati.

“I’m just trying to win,” Howard said. “That’s the whole focus.”

Andruw Jones hit a two-out, two-run homer in the ninth for Atlanta. The slugger shattered the bat just above his hands, trotting to first with only the handle as the barrel skidded toward the Phillies’ dugout and the ball cleared the 400-foot sign in center.

“We gave up a lot of runs,” Jones said. “That made it tough. We kept battling and tried to do all we could to win the game, but we came up short.”

As if another loss weren’t bad enough, Braves starter Horacio Ramirez left because of an injured finger in the fifth.