Wednesdays with Brownie: Dear hooligan in Philadelphia ...

You know their performance in a game does not reflect your worth as a person, right?

You know they’re them and you’re you, right? No matter what the letters across your shoulders say. You borrowed those.

They’re them. You happen to live nearby.

They play a sport. You watch them play it. Some are good at their sport. Others grew old or slow or uncertain or just lazy, so now they’re not as good as they were. If it were predictable, you wouldn’t watch anyway.

It’s supposed to break your heart sometimes. What fun would it be otherwise? It’s supposed to sweep you away, take you somewhere else, make you laugh and cry and high-five some dude you met exactly two beers ago. You watch because you never know when that’s going to come, but it will. If you stay long enough and believe hard enough, it will. Probably.

Forget that you pay their salaries. That’s not part of this. Besides, generally speaking, you choose to do that. Ryan Howard does not come to your house and search your change jar for the quarters. You come to his and buy $12 Bud Light Limes (a whole 'nother conversation).

And that’s fine. Great. Because it’s fun at the ballpark. And the people who own the ballclub would like you to come back, so they show you a reasonably good time and maybe try not to gouge you too much, and if they don’t know the first thing about putting a winning team on the field, they are very good at having mascots shoot T-shirts from a Howitzer. Whee.

Meantime, you think this is fun for Ryan Howard? You think he doesn’t know he’s not good at this anymore? You think there aren’t days he wishes he could sit next to you and get out from under the humiliation for a few hours? You think he’s not booing himself on the car ride home?

I suspect he is. Your can of beer, flung from the box seats — who knows why — did not make him feel worse. It did not show him. It made you feel better, at least until the cops knock on your door, and then you’re in the paper. You’re that guy. Allegedly. The reason being, Ryan Howard is not very good anymore, and therefore the Philadelphia Phillies are becoming what you thought they’d be this season, and so – presumably – you, a Phillies fan, feel bad about you, because you committed to them and now have to watch this crap.

So, allegedly, one among you hucks a can of beer at another human being over a baseball game. That’s assault. Beyond that, it’s pathetic. You’re not a fan. You’re a hooligan.

Now, congratulations to the other 25,176 fine folks at Citizens Bank Park on Saturday who managed to refrain from hitting anyone or throwing anything or turning a baseball game into anything more savage than a baseball game. Congratulations on your restraint, on your self-image, on your perspective. You’ll be forgotten in this, because of one knucklehead with a rag arm. But, it’s probably good to know you’re better than that. And that Ryan Howard is, too.

A WEEK BEHIND:

Well, it’s safe to love Matt Harvey again, apparently, and this is why baseball requires a low heart rate.

Since he went to Defcon 2, Harvey’s two starts: 14 innings, 6 hits, 1 run, 9 strikeouts, 1 walk.

Neither the Chicago White Sox nor the Miami Marlins are much on the offensive side of things, so this is not to suggest he’ll toddle off to an 0.64 ERA for another 20 starts.

On the other hand, if he stays on schedule, Harvey gets the Milwaukee Brewers, Atlanta Braves and then the Braves again before the schedule brings in late June the likes of the Washington Nationals and Chicago Cubs.

So, keep your hands and feet inside the car at all times.

A WEEK AHEAD:

A fun week by the Bay, where the San Francisco Giants host the Boston Red Sox for two, have Thursday off, then host the Los Angeles Dodgers for three.

An interesting matchup Wednesday night – David Price, who has never pitched in San Francisco, against Madison Bumgarner – means there’ll be no Bumgarner-Clayton Kershaw rematch. But, Friday night brings Johnny Cueto against Kershaw, which will do.

Kershaw in 33 appearances – 32 starts – against the Giants: 17-7, 1.60 ERA, 254 strikeouts, 40 walks over 242⅓ innings. At AT&T Park: 9-3, 1.23 ERA, 111 strikeouts, 23 walks in 117 innings.

Buster Posey’s 82 at-bats against Kershaw are the most of any player. He’s batted .220 with a .247 on-base percentage.

Brandon Belt hits righties and lefties about the same these days, and yet Friday might be a good day for a blow. He’s 3-for-43 (.070) with 23 strikeouts against Kershaw.

Of the 18 players who’ve homered more than once off Kershaw (Adam Dunn leads with four, where it’ll stay), two are Giants: Posey and, of course, Bumgarner.

SAW IT COMING:

When one of the San Diego Padres owners was blasting James Shields, it was clear Shields was done in San Diego. Perhaps Ron Fowler’s frustration was over a trade suddenly in jeopardy, or he was softening the blow for a public about to witness an early-June surrender, but here they are, off in another new direction.

As is Shields, and he’s probably happy for it, assuming the White Sox can reverse a dreadful – really dreadful – month.

He is scheduled to make his first start for the White Sox on Wednesday night against the Washington Nationals and Max Scherzer. He’ll wear Adam LaRoche’s old number 25. He’ll take the rotation place of Miguel Gonzalez, who was sent to the bullpen.

He will not get on base or drive in runs, which is what the White Sox may reach for next, assuming they are still relevant when the bigger bats come available.

The brilliance in this, of course, is that the coming free agent market is let’s say thin, and the White Sox – no matter how ’16 works out – got themselves a reliable and veteran starter for about $10 million a year.

The folly in this, of course, is that Shields is 34, has a lot of miles on him, and in the pitching receptive NL West just popped a 4.00 ERA over 44 starts.

Likely, Shields to the White Sox will fall somewhere in between brilliance and folly, and the White Sox almost certainly would take that.

DIDN'T SEE IT COMING:

As of Tuesday morning, more than a third of the way through the season, the team that had hit the most home runs – either league, no matter the altitude, no matter the park – was the Tampa Bay Rays. That’s right, they had 85, two more than the Baltimore Orioles, three more than the Seattle Mariners, nine more than the Washington Nationals, New York Mets and St. Louis Cardinals, and 62 more than the Atlanta Braves.

The Rays. Huh.

They have turned all of those instant runs into a very mediocre offense, that a result of a .312 team on-base percentage and .242 batting average, both of which ranked in the American League’s bottom four.

They haven’t finished in the top five in home runs in the AL since 2009, when Carlos Pena and Evan Longoria each hit more than 30 and Ben Zobrist hit 27.

After a couple so-so seasons, Longoria has perked up. He has 14 home runs. Steven Souza has 10 home runs while hanging with the league leaders in strikeouts. Corey Dickerson has nine home runs with a .192 batting average and .237 on-base percentage.

A trendy pick to hang at least with the wild cards in the AL, the Rays instead haven’t done much of anything well beyond their bunching together some home runs. The pitching, meh. The defense, barely OK. And the offense, while occasionally loud, spotty.

Lately, this has run downhill on Desmond Jennings, the former uber-prospect who will be 30 in the fall, was batting .189 after a three-hit game Monday night, and recently heard it from former pitcher and current Rays TV analyst Brian Anderson, who told a Tampa radio station Jennings should be benched for lackadaisical play.