Philadelphia Phillies: Ryan Howard's Achilles Checkup Overshadows Good News

While most of the media reports concerning Ryan Howard leaving spring training today to get his surgically-repaired Achilles checked mentioned the words "setback" and "scare," few of them seemed to actually report on what was going on before Howard left Clearwater.

According to an ESPN.com report, Ryan actually took part in batting practice with Jim Thome, Juan Pierre and Dom Brown on Saturday.  Not only did he participate, but Howard apparently jacked a couple of balls out of the park during the session.

This is great news for a Phillies lineup that doesn't have the pop it once used to.  The sooner they can get a strong, healthy, powerful Ryan Howard back, the sooner the Phillies can actually score runs to take the pressure off of their pitching staff.

Too many times over the last couple of seasons have the Phillies had agonizing losses in which the offensive output didn't match a sterling pitching effort (see 2011 NLDS, Game 5).  That's not to say that Howard would prevent those games from happening completely (he was certainly part of many of them last season), but having the former MVP in the lineup at least makes those games less likely.

So, to hear that Ryan Howard has not only been participating in everything he's been expected to up to this point but also that he has regained enough power to actually hit the ball over the fence in batting practice is great news.  After he initially went down during his last at-bat, I don't think many people were even sure when he'd swing a bat again.

So while it was scary at first to hear about Howard's Achilles visit on Monday, there doesn't seem to be any of the "setbacks" that were initially feared.  His ankle is in a bandage because the skin over the surgical point isn't healed, but that is not uncommon to see in recovery from Achilles surgery.  Conveniently, according to Phillies trainer Scott Sheridan, Howard was supposed to have a checkup on his Achilles scheduled around this time anyway.

What was a scare at first should make us think about how much progress Ryan Howard made in his rehab.  To hear how much he is able to participate in at this point is awesome considering the worst-case scenarios we feared after he went down.