A while ago, I mockingly noted Ryan Howard's poor start to the season and noted his high total of strikeouts, putting him on pace to obliterate his own record for most K's in a season. Additionally, I laughed at the fact that teammate and pitcher Brett Myers had allowed more home runs than Howard had hit.

Howard's OPS was consistently at sub-.700 levels until about May 21 when it crossed that threshold for good. There's no significance to it, other than that it seems like it was when he turned things around. He still wasn't at his peak level, though. That may have come on June 27 when the Phillies were in Texas, as that was the start of a 13-game hitting streak that is still alive today. In those 13 games, Howard has a 1.255 OPS, 8 homers, and 18 RBI to go along with 7 walks and 16 strikeouts.

His current OPS of .835 would be fine for a lot of Major League players, but Howard has already established himself as one of the most fearsome hitters around and is more familiar with that OPS being around 1.000 than .800. So what have been the reasons for the offensive depression?

Looking at his OBP in previous years, starting in 2005 -- .356, .425, .392, .325 -- something sticks out, and unsurprisingly, it's this year's OBP of .325. That's a below league-average (.343) OBP. In 403 plate apparances, Howard has drawn 47 walks, 9 of them intentionally. In 648 plate appearances last season, he drew 107 walks, 35 of them intentionally. If we prorate Howard's current totals over 650 PA, he's on pace to only walk 76 times, 15 of them intentionally. He's missing about 30 less walks, about 70% of which should be intentional. If Howard was as fearsome to opposing managers this year as he was last year, he would have 96 walks, only 11 less than last year, and his OBP would be .398.

Howard's percentage of unintentional walks is higher this season (80%) than last season (67%). He's on pace for 66 unintentional walks this season as opposed to the 72 he drew last season. His batting eye so to speak, is relatively the same, at least in this instance.

Why isn't Howard a fearsome hitter anymore? He is on pace for 218 strikeouts, which might play into the reluctance to give him a free pass anymore, since he's the easiest player in the Majors to goad into swinging and missing.

Howard's batting average is also only .234, and before his 13-game hitting streak, it was .213. His expected BABIP based on his line drive rate (20.1%) is .321, but it is really only .272.  In 2006, Howard posted a similar LD% (21.9%) but had a .356 BABIP, higher than the expected BABIP of .339. Howard has been a bit unlucky so far this season, especially by his own standards, which is why his batting average is low.

Combine early-season decisions to pitch to Howard that yielded positive results for opposing managers with Howard's bad luck, and other managers see less and less of a reason to put him on first base intentionally.

If he was getting intentionally walked more, and if he had a little less bad luck on balls in play, Howard would be mentioned with Lance Berkman, teammate Chase Utley, and Chipper Jones in potential NL MVP talks.