Ryan Howard is Scared of the Ball

And we can blame John Lannan. The same John Lannan who hit our savior Chase Utley on the hand, sending him to the DL for 28 games. In fact, it happened on the same day. At least Micah Kelber, guest author on the freakonomics blog in the NY Times, thinks so. It's an interesting angle on the mental aspect of baseball from a source that rarely talks about sports. Click the link for the full article, but here's the results in a nutshell:

Chase Utley has been hit by many pitches over the last 2 years. It's Ryan Howard who must step up to bat immediately after seeing his teammate get hit. At first, he was unfazed, perhaps even fired up by the plunking of his teammate. His stats in at-bats after Utley was hit were impressive: a .471 BA and OBP of .571. But then, in July, Lannan happened.

After hitting Chase Utley and breaking his hand, Lannan proceeded to tag Howard, as well. This was the first time Utley and Howard had been hit by pitches back-to-back. In his last 53-at bats after the back-to-back plunking, Howard only hit .184 with an OBP of .327. One possible explanation? Empathy. Or at least the neurological equivalent of empathy.

Studies show that watching someone experience pleasure, pain or disgust triggers our own brains to produce a similar feeling. So after watching Utley get hit and then being hit himself, Howard may have become preoccupied and conditioned to worry. This ultimately distracted him and caused a drop-off in performance in at-bats following a Chase Utley beanball.

This hypothesis has little strategic benefit, but it certainly is an interesting look at how the psychology and physiology of our bodies and minds affect the sports world. Now if we could just find out a way to condition him to fear all sliders low and away, we'd REALLY be making progress.