Time!  Pencils down and cease stat padding!  The baseball regular season has come to another thrilling end.  As we anticipated, Pat “the Bat” Burrell has overcome any personal demons and carried the Phillies to their second straight NL East championship.  With a flair for the dramatic, Pat helped dismantle the Braves in Atlanta, then went 0 for a series in Florida, before getting hits in 4 of his last 5 games of the season.  A final stamp on an MVP like season as he quickly raised his OPS rating an astounding 13 points in just 5 games.

Pat’s MVP future rests in the hands of the voters now. We can only hope that they make the correct decision. I’ve recently had my heart warmed by the sell-out crowds at Citizen’s Bank Ballpark cheering “M-V-P M-V-P” when Pat steps into the on deck circle. I do hope that Ryan Howard, who is at bat during these chants, is not too distracted. Hats off to Ryan Howard as well, for his spectacular September. His success is a testament to just how fearful pitchers are of Pat. Despite Pat’s cold streak, his incalculable hitting skills still have pitchers too intimidated to pitch around RyHo. We’ve already discussed in this blog how RyHo delivers with much more regularity when Pat Burrell is protecting him.

A quick look at some numbers. In 2005, Pat finished 7th in MVP voting. This season he has more doubles, more triples, more home runs, a higher slugging percentage and more walks. With factors such as the decrease in steroid and HGH use, this increase in productivity is even more spectacular since many of those who defeated him that season have seen their numbers come tumbling down.

In the lighter side of news, there was a recent bomb scare outside of Citizen’s Bank Ballpark. There is no truth to the rumor that there was a gun scare inside the ballpark later on when Pat Burrell took his shirt off.