Voice of Reason

We'll take a momentary break from talking about pitching to bring you this quote from today's Todd Zolecki piece on lineup protection for Ryan Howard:

"You could put anybody behind Ryan Howard this year, it really doesn't matter," [Joe] Sheehan [of Baseball Prospectus] said. "What's going to happen is Ryan Howard is going to hit .275 with 46 homers, which would be an unbelievable year for anybody, and people are going to say, 'Well, Pat Burrell didn't protect him.' Because at this point, Pat Burrell is blamed for everything from weather patterns to kidnappings to low home prices."

At this point, there are much much bigger things to worry about. End of story.